Unexpected Wielder
by Sinitar of The Valley
Summary: Everyone always thinks being a superhero and living the life is better than reality. But Mia is finding out she just isn't cut out for that. Being trapped in a Universe set on killing you isn't fun at all. It's a good thing that she's got the most powerful device in the universe with many secrets of its own. Self Insert.
1. Then there were 2

Being just a normal girl is difficult really. No action, adventures or anything that kids on tv usually have. Everything is boring. Predictable. You already know what's going to happen tomorrow. Go to school, maybe embarrass yourself in front of the boy or girl that you like, then go home, do homework, spend time with family or shut yourself in your bedroom. The most exciting thing you can do is read or watch tv. That's just what I did. Read fanfiction and spend time idolizing my favourite shows.

I didn't really like books that much though. You didn't have control over what you could read on that. They all always followed the same genre and tropes. It was as if the authors were too afraid to change it up a bit. But fans didn't. They would take the source material and bend it to whatever was their desire. Their wishes took shape and everything followed.

My favourite shows to read and watch were mostly from Cartoon Network; Ben 10, Generator Rex, Steven Universe. But there were still other shows she liked watching that wasn't animated or weren't from that one specific channel.

But I still loved Ben 10. It was at the top of my top 10s. I grew up with that show. I never missed an episode and watched every single season. And after each conclusion, I would always buy the complete season when it came out so I could decide when and where I wanted to watch it.

Original series, Alien Force, Ultimate Alien, Omniverse. I watched them all. And loved them all, despite all the venom fans usually spat to each series as they came out because they weren't the original. I even enjoyed watching the reboot series. I have to admit that the first part of the debut season was trash, but it did get better. At least for me.

That's why I was ecstatic when I found myself in their universe. Who wouldn't be? It was everybody's dream. Some fanfictions were even about it.

But I didn't know how dangerous it could be. Or how exhausting I'd end up. Not to mention homesickness. But before I get to all that we need to go to the beginning.

* * *

I'm really not sure how I ended up here in the first place.

I'm pretty sure that I was out with my friends at the mall like we always did every Friday. My friend picked out a dress for me to try out and I was in the dressing room. After a few minutes of looking at myself in the mirror, I ended up taking it off and putting my clothes back on.

Then I walked out of the fitting room and all of a sudden I found myself in the middle of a crowd of students all rushing to get out of school. It was very disorienting. And it didn't help that I was being pulled by my hand either.

Looking around I noticed that all the people in the crowd were kids. Preteen kids. Elementary schoolers with their parents.

And the worst thing was that I was their height. Well, nearly their height since I seemed to be an inch taller than most kids.

I must be dreaming. I slipped on my way out of the fitting room and now I'm hallucinating all of this.

But then why was the feeling of my arm nearly being ripped off so real? And who the fuck was pulling me?

"Come on! Grandpa Max must be waiting for us." I recognized that voice. But it couldn't be. He wasn't real.

I looked at his shirt. It was identical. White shirt with a black stripe and collar. Green cargo shorts and a messy haircut. There was no mistake here. It was Benjamin Kirby Tennyson. The kid who would grow up into a cutie.

Before I could ask what was happening he stopped pulling on me and lifted his head as if hearing something. They were the cries of help.

Ben left me behind as he raced to defend whichever poor kid was being bullied. I think I already knew who was doing it though.

At the beginning of the series in the first episode, Ben defended a classmate who was being threatened to fork over his lunch money. It didn't make sense because it was the end of the day and lunch had passed. But JT and Cash seemed to be the stupidest duo so I wouldn't put it past them.

I caught up to Ben just as Cash was pulling him up by the underwear.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing, Cash?" I glared at them with my arms crossed.

I'm not sure what I was expecting them to do. Maybe just glance at me and ignore me? Or perhaps I would end up on the tree branch next to Ben and the kid, but I sure as hell didn't expect what happened next.

JT looked behind him at me to see who was the one making demands. His eyes widened and were made bigger by his glasses the moment he saw me. He tapped Cash's shoulder.

Cash's face widened with fright matching his friend's as he saw who JT was pointing at, me.

"Mia, I, we… we didn't see you there," Cash's face paled.

"Put him down," I ordered trying my best to control my voice and keep it from stammering. I've never really done well confronting with bullies. Though, I've never really been bullied myself. The worst I've been through was name calling and teasing.

Ben crashed to the floor butt first, his face formed a scowl at the pain.

Now turning to the two bullies I said, "Now scram."

They obediently scrambled off. The kid who was being bullied first gave me a thankful nod before he walked away. He did take a short second to give Ben a stink eye though.

"Thanks," Ben grumbled as he picked himself up.

"Hey, at least you tried to do the right thing. That's all that counts," I smiled at him.

Ben's face brightened a bit at my gesture. The screech of wheels interrupted the moment and Ben pulled me with him again.

We were headed to the rustbucket, Max's RV and Ben and Gwen's home for the summer. It really was old. At least in the cartoon, it kind of looked alright but in person, I could see that the old thing was supposed to be white. The years had stained it into a yellowish fade similar to the colours of old bones. The paint was chipped too and the metal antennae on the top were horribly bent. I could even see several dents on the chassis.

"Come on. I'll introduce you to my grandpa!" Ben said with excitement.

I stifled a laugh as Ben threw open the door and was met with the appearance of his orange headed cousin. Gwen looked up at Ben with a sigh but I guess she was curious about me because her gaze lingered on me a bit too much.

"Grandpa?" Gwen started. "Ben brought a girl into the RV. Are we sure this really isn't the end of the world?" she really nailed the worry and panic in her voice.

Gwen looked at Ben with a smirk.

"Grandpa, you said that it was just going to be us," Ben whined.

I was starting to get uncomfortable. I really didn't like being in the middle of family problems. Even less when they weren't my own. Watching this on tv was completely different than being stuck in the middle of it.

"It's just for the summer. Besides, I convinced your aunt and uncle to let me bring your cousin so that we can have even more fun." Little did he know.

"Don't worry doofus," Gwen assured him. "If it was up to me, I would be away at tech camp right now. So you don't have to worry about me the whole summer because I'll be trying my best to stay away from your stick brain. You can have all the personal time for your girlfriend," she smirked at me.

I looked at Ben to see that his cheeks were turning red as we locked our gaze on each other. My face warmed up at the implications of this.

"Look, I'm sorry for pairing you with the dweeb called my cousin, but who are you?" Gwen narrowed her eyes at me.

"Uh…" I froze. Did I want to tell them my name? I wasn't sure. But then I remembered that JT and Cash somehow already knew it. Maybe I had a reputation here. But how? Was it really a dream? Did I somehow travel sideways in time to an alternate universe where this world's version of me existed already?

"This is Mia, Mia Hall. I invited her to join us for the summer. Her parents agreed to let her and Grandpa Max said that it was only going to be the three of us," he frowned.

"Nice," Gwen copied his expression.

"Well, if everyone is ready, we have traffic to beat," Max motioned for me to close the door.

I did as I was told and we were soon driving down the freeway off to the start of my new life trapped in this world. Not that I'm complaining.

* * *

 _ **Vilgax the Conqueror's Ship**_

Several robots were working silently as they maneuvered their large ship towards the smaller one they had spent the last several weeks chasing. It contained a precious cargo that they were trying their best to recover.

"I want the Omnitrix back," their commander demanded from the shadows where only his red eyes glowed.

His slimy green hands slammed onto the armrest of his chair. He rubbed his wrist where the device had once rested. It felt strange to have nothing there anymore.

His robot drones chittered amongst each other before turning their attention back on the console in front of them and the screens that showed them their enemy.

A red laser glowed brilliantly from their canons before firing at the small ship. It was easy for it to evade the weapon thanks to its smaller size but the laser still managed to hit its force field causing it to malfunction and break down.

With no defences anymore, the drones prepared to fire once more. But before they could the ship disappeared. They checked the radar and spotted it moving in closer to the 5th celestial body from the sun. A red planet.

"Catch up to it," Vilgax growled. The tentacles on his face squirmed a little under his rage.

The engines came to life, shaking the ship. In several seconds they were right behind the ship again ready to continue their small battle.

* * *

 _ **Mia**_

I helped put up the tent and start the fire. Ben was eager to help me too and in turn his grandfather. Gwen on the other hand, she had her nose stuck in front of the screen. She pretended that the rest of us didn't exist. I don't know why but I found her silent treatment kind of cute. If Ben really did have a crush on me, I'm sorry, but I think I was developing one of my own.

It was strange to have a crush on another girl. I never thought I would ever be included in those types of feelings. But I was also getting older. Even if I was trapped in my 11-year-old body again.

"Chow time!" Max called.

We all gathered at the table waiting anxiously for the proverbial dinner. To our dismay, a bowl of worms was slammed down on the wood. I forgot how dangerous Grandpa Max was with foods.

"Uh. Please tell me this is a joke," I looked up pleading to my host. Ben and Gwen nodded in agreement with worry.

"What do you mean?" he asked with serious confusion. "These are considered delicacies in some countries," he said while popping one of the living creatures into his mouth and munching on it making sickening noises.

"Not to sound ungrateful or anything Mr. Tennyson, but…"

"Please, call me Max."

I nodded showing my understanding at his request. "Max, we are still kids. And we would like some normal food." I offered a toothy smile joined by Ben. Gwen just looked defeated, I guess she knew what his answer was going to be.

"Nonsense. This summer is going to be an explosion on your taste buds. But if you want, I'll get the lamb's tongue out for dessert. Or perhaps a side dish." He went back into the RV leaving us to plan out what to do in terms of nourishment for the summer.

Dinner was a bust. We had to force ourselves to eat the lamb's tongue in an effort to steer clear from the wriggling worms. It wasn't that bad for me. But Ben and Gwen still hated the taste and texture of the food. I thought it had a similar taste to octopus.

"Hey Ben," I called.

He looked up from his game. Grandpa Max was digging around the trunk probably looking for some marshmallows to roast and Gwen was still on her computer.

"Let's go for a walk."

We didn't walk far from the camp. It was just a short one. We talked during it about how the day was going so far. I also managed to sneak some information of myself out of Ben in the process. He really liked to talk about me a lot.

I ended up finding out that I was apparently a thrill seeker here. I stood up to bullies and did all sorts of stupid shit. Skateboarding, I took the same martial arts class as Ben—that's how we apparently met— and I was single as far as he knew.

The walk didn't last long.

"Hey. Is that a satellite?" Ben pointed up to the sky.

I looked up to be met with a ball of fire suddenly rocketing towards us. I staggered back along with Ben barely avoiding being crushed underneath the Omnitrix.

Ben was the first to get up and he helped me to my own feet. We remained a bit back from the crash. But Ben was obviously excited about encountering a fallen satellite.

"Which country do you think it's from?" He asked me.

The ground suddenly fell dropping us closer to the pod now. I watched in amazement as the shell pulled itself apart to reveal the green glowing device.

"Cool," Ben reached out to touch it.

The Omnitrix jumped out and wrapped itself around his wrist just like in the show. It was amazing. I was watching the events of my favourite show unfold before my eyes. I was experiencing everything myself. If this really was a dream then I didn't want it to end.

"Wait," I said too late.

My own hand was reaching out and touched the Omnitrix. An enormous wave of green feedback exploded outward from it pushing me into a tree and tossing Ben on top of a boulder.

"Mia!" He came running over to me.

He stuck his hand out to pick me up. He had the newly acquired Omnitrix on his wrist with the dial slowly spinning around.

I took his hand and ended up shocked to see that I also had an Omnitrix, on my right hand, spinning in the same direction.

"What the?" I said.

"You have the same one?" Ben asked.

He pulled me up to my feet. We raised the devices up to each other. Another sphere of green energy popped up on both of us preventing us from putting them any closer.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"I'm not sure."

The faceplates suddenly popped up with the familiar OG Omnitrix beep.

"No don't touch it…" again, my warning was too late or it might've fallen on deaf ears because Ben was washed in a green light and a second later I was also bathed in it.

Once I could see again, I looked at him to see that he'd been replaced by a walking red candlestick. Heatblast.

"What the?" He looked at me. "You're on fire!" he pointed at me.

"Ben? You're on fire too," I pointed out.

He looked at me confused. Then he looked down at himself and started panicking.

"I'm on fire. I'm on fire," He flailed around.

I tried calming him down but he didn't listen to me. Because of that, I focused on myself. I was also on fire. And the Omnitrix I had disappeared from where it last was.

There was a small pond nearby where I was able to look at the full changes. I looked exactly like Ben. Except that my flames burned a bit darker. Or lighter. I can't tell what the word quite is. But where Ben's flames were nearly white, mine was a bit more yellow. And my body also had a more feminine curve as well as being a bit thinner and a tad smaller than him.

"Hey, Mia. Check this out," Ben chuckled as he shot a few small bursts of fire at things like branches and twigs. "Pretty sweet, eh?" He looked at me.

I remembered the alternate episode where Gwen found the Omnitrix instead and got an idea.

"It's okay. But look at what I can do," I gave him a smile.

A ball of fire formed in the middle of my hands and I shot it up into the sky where it exploded into a show of fireworks. It wasn't as fancy as what I wanted it to look like but it was better than just shooting balls of fire from my fingertips.

"Oh Yeah?" Ben's expression deepened into determination as soon as the awe left him. "I can do better."

I laughed as he began to attempt what I did.

He was able to create a ball like me. But his fireball was all lumpy. And when he threw it into the air, it fell down before it got a chance to explode. But that was the problem. It did explode, right in front of us.

The explosion shook the ground and caused an eruption of flames that consumed the trees.

We were trying our best to put out the forest fire we accidentally created while panicking when Gwen showed up and extinguished Ben.

"Aahhh! Stay away from me Ugly!" She swung her fire extinguisher at his head.

"Watch it, you freak," Ben blasted the canister away from her hands.

Realization dawned on her. "Ben?" She looked at me, "Mia?"

We nodded. Grandpa Max arrived and looked at us. I could see a spark of recognition in his eyes.

"Holy mother of Paxus," he said.

"Guess who Grandpa?" Ben and I gave a little wave as Gwen tried to give him hints.

"Ben? Mia? What happened?"

Ben started to try and explain the situation but Gwen didn't allow him.

"Hello? Forest fire? Smokey won't like this," she reminded.

"Max, I have an idea. I just need you to walk us through the steps," I said remembering about the backfire.

* * *

 _ **Vilgax**_

" _What do you mean it's gone?_ " Vilgax breathed heavily.

His body was all torn up. The damage done to the bridge of his ship was bad. The damage done to him was horrific. His limbs were torn to shreds and the only one that survived was his left arm.

The torso was demolished. The bottom half was gone replaced by healing tentacles. And there was a scar that reached up to his eye. His face was in a similar condition. Since most of his organs were gone, he also needed to be hooked up to a respiratory system.

All this resulted in him just floating around in a chamber that accelerated his healing. So he would be able to fully stand by himself in a month or maybe less.

-Scanners show that the device was ejected in a pod with a trajectory towards the planet below before being destroyed.- one of the droids informed.

Vilgax's eyes narrowed, " _Bring me my Omnitrix._ "

A robot half the size of the tank Vilgax was in moved from its hiding place and left to the ejector pods.

" _Ready my battle armour. I will need to follow up to make sure I can ensure the procuration of the device._ "

-My Lord. You have sustained too…- electricity crackled through its body and it fell to the floor limply.

" _Any more concerns?"_ The other droids looked at each other before shaking their heads.

They would be preparing and modifying his armour to keep him alive outside of the tank.

* * *

 _ **Mia**_

I let Ben explain the entire thing. So while he and his family talked, I ate some marshmallows trying to keep them from burning to a crisp in my mouth.

"And then it latched onto my hand. And Mia touched it. And when she did there was this huge explosion of green," he mimicked what happened with his hands and sounds.

He reached into the bag I had and popped in a few marshmallows for himself.

"And then the dial of the watch popped up and I pressed it down and bam! I was on fire. Except it didn't hurt. And she was on fire too. This is just so weird and cool."

"Will Ben and Mia ever go back to normal? Or will he stay a monster forever?" Gwen asked Max.

"I hope so. I don't want to set fire to everything forever," Ben admitted. "I can't catch little league balls if I'll just burn them."

"Well for one. He isn't a monster. He's an alien," we all stared at him. "Uh…I mean look at him," he pointed.

He looked at me. I guess my gaze lingered a bit too long.

The sound of the Omnitrix timing out washed relief over me. The two echoed at the same time before flushing everything in red.

"I'm me again!" Ben celebrated.

"Yeah. Except…"

"Mia is still the fire girl," Gwen finished for me.

And the problem was that I no longer had the Omnitrix symbol on my chest. The circle was still there, but it was black. It was cool being an alien-like Ben was so many times, but I was scared now. I didn't want to be stuck like this permanently.

"What's going to happen now?" I asked.

"Hold on. Maybe I can go back to the crash site and figure this whole debacle out. Don't go anywhere," we nodded at Max's instructions.

He was gone for a few minutes when Gwen began to ask me things and Ben started messing with the watch again.

"So what's it like being an alien?"

I gave the question some thought. "Well. I'm not sure. I don't feel any different. It's. It's just. Well, I'm me. But I'm also someone else and I can do different things. You get what I'm saying?" I looked down at her.

I had gotten tired of sitting down on the log. I was just too tall for it and decided to stretch my legs. Besides, the log I was on was already black from supporting my flaming butt.

"Kind of?" She sounded unsure.

The sound of the Omnitrix finally recharging turned our attention to Ben. The boy didn't waste any time in fiddling with it.

"What are you doing, Ben?" Gwen demanded.

I glared at him as he raised his watch and opened his mouth. He ignored it.

"Don't you girls want to know how this thing works?" We shook our heads. "Yeah. No surprise there for girls," he sneered. "If we can figure this out, maybe we can return Mia to normal, and perhaps even use these to help people."

"Or maybe you'll end up like her," Gwen pointed out.

I knew that it wasn't true. At least not for Ben. But I also knew that the Omnitrix couldn't just spontaneously clone itself. Or trap someone in a transformation without master control being activated or the life form lock. So really there wasn't any way to tell what could happen. And I was worried about that.

"Please, Ben. Stop messing with that thing. Wait until Grandpa Max comes back," I pleaded.

He looked at me and for a moment I thought he was going to listen to me. But then the Omnitrix's core sprung up and snapped him out of whatever thoughts he was having.

"I think I know how this works now," he said.

He pointed to the green dot on the thick black band, "You press this button and then you choose out of 10 different aliens." He spun the dial showing the shadows of other aliens. "Then you slam the face down and wham! You're one of 10 different alien heroes!" his eyes shined.

Gwen and I looked at him worriedly though.

"Please just…" again, Ben ignored us and slammed his hand down on the Omnitrix.

At the same time, the black circle on my chest came to life and washed me in green energy at the same time.

Everything was taller when I could see again. And I couldn't see but I could still see. It was trippy. I walked forward and all four of my legs responded.

Legs. I had four legs. Not two. That meant. I remembered now. Ben and I turned into Wildmutt. But Ben would run off into the trees and bump into one of Vilgax's drones.

I could feel vibrations in the air around me. The gills on my neck opened up and gave me a detailed description of what was going on. Gwen was looking at Ben and me probably curious as to what we turned into this time. She scooped up a branch and then swung at Ben.

The jump onto the RV shook the ground making me growl involuntarily at Ben. He somersaulted down in front of us and kicked dirt in our direction before jumping off into the bushes.

I looked up at Gwen trying to show my concern over him. She scratched the back of my head probably trying to console me.

Another quick flash of my gills showed me her movements. She was pointing off in the direction that Ben left to and looked back at me. I got what she was trying to tell me and scampered off trying to find her cousin.

I found Ben just as he was tearing a drone apart. The explosion sent debris off into my direction. I was about dodge when I remembered that I was leading Gwen here. I quickly turned around and scooped her into my paws before jumping as high as I could. The pieces of metal landed heavily in the spot Gwen and I were in a moment ago as we landed off to the side. I put her down and received a gentle pat from her.

My gills opened up and I saw Ben as he timed out. Again, I was still trapped in an alien form. This time a partially useless animal alien. I never did like Wildmutt.

I jumped onto the drone Ben was holding on for dear life and grabbed. Before I jumped off, I tore into the thing with my jaws and left it to crash into a tree. No more drones.

While Gwen and Ben argued about something I couldn't hear, I tasted the air. There was smoke in it. Not from here but from far away. There were a lot of things I was forgetting about the first episode. I wasn't sure what was wrong with my brain or memory but with a few quick slams into a tree I remembered about the strange Spider drone that tore apart the rest-stop.

I growled and slobbered at Ben and Gwen and once I got their attention I got them onto my back and bounded off for the site. We managed to get there in 10 minutes. It was a long time for the victims to wait, but it was faster than running as humans and it gave the Omnitrix enough time to recharge. I threw Ben off me and let Gwen climb down. Then I started gnawing at the Omnitrix hoping Ben would get what I was trying to say.

Before I knew it, I was able to see and speak properly again.

"Whoa, who is this guy?" Ben asked as he looked at his green crystal hands.

"Call it, Diamondhead. Now stop gawking and help me with this guy."

The big robot had stopped attacking the buildings and cars and was now looking at us. Its oversized head went from me to Ben. With one hand it smacked me off into the trees and went after Ben.

I picked myself up without a scratch, Petrosapiens were really tough. Why wasn't it going after me? I also had an Omnitrix.

My question was answered as I looked down at my chest. The Omnitrix was all black again. It must've messed with the scans.

The fingers at the end of my hand combined to form a thick spear and I joined in the fight with Ben.

A laser came out of the eyes scorching everything in its path toward Ben. I wasn't worried, I knew that it would just bounce off him like a mirror but he wasn't aware of that. He was crouched and huddled probably scared thinking that it would actually hurt him. But when it hit him it just reflected off into random parts of the lot.

I looked at Gwen and Max, they were busy evacuating the civilians. But they weren't far enough away to be protected from any more blasts. Without thinking I slammed my fists deep into the ground and created a wall of crystal that separated them from the battle.

Now that we didn't have to worry about stray lasers Ben and I were able to attack more freely. Our attacks left deep gashes in the robot's body but it still wouldn't stop.

"Ben! I have an idea," I called.

"I'm all ears!"

"Do you think you can form a shield or ramp?" I asked as I created a shield on my arm for a demonstration.

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

"Try at least," I ordered as I jumped at the robot's face to buy Ben some time.

I was thrown to the ground just as Ben was ready. He had turned his hands into a type of curved ramp.

"Hey Ugly!" Ben taunted the robot. "Bet you can't hit me here!" He puffed out his chest.

The robot remained frozen for a moment, then his eyes shot out a laser to him. Ben raised the ramp, up in front of him, making the laser move at me. I raised my shield and bounced the laser up to the robot destroying its head.

We cheered in its defeat. But the victory was short-lived. My breath caught in my throat as a familiar shadow came upon us. My blood drained and turned to ice as I realized that the Omnitrix splitting in two wasn't the only change in the series.

The tall character was green in appearance and had several grey mechanical limbs replacing his own. But the tentacles were still on his face albeit a bit covered up by the mask that was helping Vilgax breath.

" _Hand me the Omnitrix child, and your defeat will be swift and painful,_ " his eyes narrowed at Ben.

Ben took a stance and sharpened his arms into daggers, I followed his actions and prepared myself to fight the Conquerer.

" _Two Petrosapiens?_ " Vilgax cackled. " _I shall be reliving my glory days!_ "

"If your glory days are about getting pummeled to bits then I'd hate to know what your bad days are, Squid face," Ben taunted.

I was too frightened to join in the quips. All I could do was attack and dodge the attacks thrown at me. I wasn't expecting to face off against the warlord this early. Vilgax was definitely always more powerful and evil in the original series. That's the reason I was scared. Not only that, but Ben barely defeated him during their first encounter because he was already well experienced in using the watch.

My hands dug into the ground and I created a series of spikes that popped up into the air and smashed into one of his legs. The metal tore away to reveal all the circuitry underneath. Vilgax fell to his knee and groaned clutching it.

" _You will pay for your insolence, grub,_ " he threatened.

"Be...Diamond Head, aim for the weak parts," I yelled.

Ben looked at the damaged knee and his eyes widened in realization, "Gotcha."

We backed up and raised our hands to start pelting him with tiny crystal bullets. They didn't do anything to the skin it came in contact with, but the crystals certainly gave his metallic limbs a beating.

Vilgax groaned and powered through the shower we were giving him. I strained to produce more along with Ben but he was able to keep walking through it. I could only watch helplessly as he smacked Ben towards the crystal wall I created to keep the innocent people safe. I was glad I made that now.

Ben hit the wall with a sickening crunch just as he timed out. A flash of red light left him unconscious and vulnerable at the hands of Vilgax. This wasn't how it could end. I still had a chance. My Omnitrix thankfully refused to time out and I was thankful for that for the first time.

"Hey, Vilgax!" he turned at my call. "Say hello to Six-Six and Crab for me."

I ran full speed at him. Long makeshift swords grew out of my back and I tore them off and swung them at Vilgax impaling his arms. He screamed in pain as they were ripped off and left him armless allowing Ben to roll to the ground with a thud, but safe.

" _You. Petrosapien, are the roaches of the galaxy!_ _Every time your kind are destroyed, more of you pop up scattered among the stars,_ " he glared.

It seemed like he still wasn't aware of the double Omnitrix.

"I shouldn't spare you because I know you will keep coming after us," I ripped the mechanical bottom half of his body making him shout. "But you're necessary for the future."

I slung Ben onto my shoulder then proceeded to puncture the gas tanks of the cars in front of Vilgax's eyes. I walked over to a telephone pole and ripped some wires out of the box. Then I dropped it down onto the stream of gas that was starting to pool and head to Vilgax.

"But it doesn't mean that I can't leave a souvenir for you to remember me by," I winked.

* * *

I was able to get Ben back to Max and Gwen. They took him into the RV in order to properly care for him. I stayed outside and watched the firemen put out the fire, I created, from the shadows of the trees. Vilgax wasn't found in the wreckage so I assumed he must've escaped the pretty accident I set up for him while I was delivering Ben to his family.

My Omnitrix finally timed out some time during the night before Ben turned into XLR8 to make his revenge plan. If I was awake during that time, I would've stopped him from doing that because I was afraid to become trapped in transformation again. But I luckily didn't. My Omnitrix was still in recharge mode and I had no clue how long it would take for it to come out of it.

But there was something even more strange happening to it. It had the standard red face in place of the green one. But 3 blue bars had appeared on the dial. It was like when the Omnitrix was on self-destruct mode. But with the recalibration settings. I wasn't sure what was going on with it, but as long as nothing back was obviously going on, I was okay with it.

This summer was going to be a strange one.


	2. Small Problem at DC

Ben knocked on the door again as hard as he could, making the flimsy thing shake.

"Come on, Mia! I need to use the restroom," he pleaded.

I could hear Gwen scolding him on things like etiquette or whatever. I didn't pay attention. My reflection on the mirror was a lot more important to me.

Day 3 of the road trip and just one day after getting an Omnitrix stuck on my wrist and I was barely bringing myself to check my reflection. My hair had been able to survive without any interference and my clothes still hadn't gotten smelly. Probably some cartoon logic. Though I'm not sure how that would apply here since everything seemed normal to me. Actually, how _would_ I know if I was in a cartoon or not if my eyes would adjust to the world?

That was a bit freaky to think about. Just like wondering whether the universe was a simulation or not.

With a shudder, I turned my thoughts back on the reflection. My hair no longer stopped at my chin. It was actually long reaching my shoulder blades. It was styled in the way I used to have my hair when I was eleven—two small braids that connected at the back of my head forming what I called a braided crown.

I was wearing a normal white shirt underneath a styled purple button cardigan. I've never liked skirts so I wore jeans instead. And around my neck was my favourite necklace. A book shaped locket. My first boyfriend gave it to me before he moved when I was 14. That was last year.

I'm a bit pale, no longer tanned liked I used to be. Then again that was when I was older. My hair was blonde and my teeth gave a straight white smile. Brown eyes looked back at me reflecting the judging stare I had.

I took after my dad a lot. He was large, white, and had light hair like me. What I didn't match in his looks were his blue eyes and crooked teeth. I was pretty sure I was better off without the latter.

Before I came out of the bathroom, I grabbed my phone. It was the only thing I had on me when I came along for the road trip. It was buried underneath a few articles of clothes in case I needed a change. There was a long list of numbers on it. And worst of all, it was a flip phone. So that meant no internet connection. However, there were a couple of memos and notes written that helped me understand this world's version of me better.

I also took advantage of that feature and wrote up a couple of my own notes about what I remembered from the entire series. I still wasn't done writing everything down since there were just too many episodes. But I already wrote down the essentials just in case I forgot about them. I just wasn't sure if this phone was going to survive everything. Maybe I should improve on this phone once Ben turned into upgrade and thereafter, me.

Another knock on the door startled me this time.

"Mia, not to be brash, but we really do need to use the rest...room," I opened the door to allow her to see me. "Are you okay?"

I looked at her confused, "What?"

"You look, sad," she explained.

Ben nodded in agreement.

"It's nothing," I said hoping that they would drop the subject.

The Rustbucket's tires screeched to a stop as we were knocked off balance and fell on top of each other.

"Ben, there's a fire going on right now," Grandpa Max called.

Gwen and I quickly got off of Ben as he activated the Omnitrix. I looked at the one on my wrist and found relief that it was still recharging from the last time it was used. Though being an alien was awesome, I didn't like the idea of being trapped as one forever.

"It's hero time," Ben exclaimed before green light washed over him as he exited the RV.

"Nice going dweeb. A walking candlestick for a fireplace," Gwen insulted.

"Hey Ben," Ben turned to me. "If you can create fire with that alien, maybe you can also suck it back in."

"Got it."

While Ben was in the burning building, Max, Gwen and I were helping the fire dept and other Samaritans keep the watching eyes at a safe distance. It was actually harder than it looked. Movies made it seem easy but all the people pushing made it extremely difficult for an 11-year-old to keep them back.

A small explosion of fire rocked the ground and sent flaming debris into the sky. After this, it was much easier pushing people back a bit. Unfortunately, that didn't last long. As soon as Ben arrived with his rescues in a tornado of fire, all the people began pushing forward to get a better glimpse at him with their cameras flashing bright lights.

"Thank you! Thank you all! It's all just in a day's work for a hero!" He pumped his arms in the air as he gave out flying kisses.

He was so full of himself I thought with a sigh.

Luckily, the Omnitrix decided to start timing out at that moment. He cut his display short and blasted off into the air, probably headed off to some building or alley to allow the Omnitrix to fully time out.

Once our help wasn't needed and the Firefighters had finally put out the burning building, we decided to go looking for Ben. But he showed up right in front of us before we could get into the Rustbucket.

"What the hell, Doofus? Where were you? We were just about to go looking for you."

"Calm down, Gwen. I had to look for some empty place where I could transform. You guys are the ones who don't want anyone to know that all the aliens are me after all. And the closest empty place was a roof where the door was locked," Ben explained.

"Good. Keeping your identity a secret is important, Ben," Max said before climbing in.

We all followed in after him. I sat on the table across from Ben while Gwen took her place riding shotgun. So far, Ben hadn't tried to argue with his cousin over who got to ride shotgun. He was always content with sitting on the table actually.

"What do you think, Mia?"

I looked at Ben confused.

"What do you think about having a secret identity?" he repeated perhaps picking up on my confusion.

"Oh, I don't know. From the comics, I've read, and shows, I've watched, I think it depends on the person."

He raised an eyebrow intrigued.

"But what do _you_ think about it?"

"Uh. Well," I gave it a bit of thought. "I want to protect my friends and family. Especially the ones I love. So I'd try my best to keep myself a secret I guess. But I wouldn't hide it from friends and family. I don't see a point to that. It just puts them in more danger since they won't know what's going on behind their back."

After my explanation, everything fell silent.

* * *

It was midday when we were all hungry. Max was thankfully running on an empty fridge and so he decided that a trip to the market was necessary. If we worked together we might not be eating worms for dinner or lunch.

While Gwen and I distracted Max and tried to convince him to view the world as a kid would, Ben went off to find appropriate items to turn into food.

"So, Max. I'm curious about why you love so much exotic _foods_ ," I implied my question.

Gwen gave me a death glare and I realized what I had done. Max was going to remember about the real foods he was here for and all we did would have been for nothing.

"Well, you see Mia," Max began oblivious to the conflict arising between me and his granddaughter. "When you're away from home in foreign territory. You learn to appreciate what locals call food. All the adventures you experience with your taste buds soon begin to feel familiar and in the end, it begins to become home." Gwen and I looked up from our glaring contest as we saw Max begin to tear up a bit. "And when your time away is over you start to yearn for those exciting times. For me, these things you call exotic foods are as close as I can get to being among those places."

Now we knew why he enjoyed the grubs and octopi and pig legs so much.

My Omnitrix recharging broke the atmosphere that had been built by Max's explanation. I looked at it curiously.

The faceplate suddenly popped up and scrolled all the way to Grey Matter.

"Gwen, find Ben…" I began to order as I realized what was going to happen.

Green energy enveloped me. Once it was gone I was exaggeratedly shorter than I was. Around twice the size of a shoe. And Gwen was gone leaving me alone with Max.

He crouched and picked me up into his palm. As I explained what I " _thought_ " was going on, he ran quickly to the aisle Ben would surely be in.

My frog eyes had eyelids close in horizontally as I scanned the mess. Gwen stood there holding Grey Matter in one hand and a paper in the other.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Max cleared his throat at my language. "Sorry. What I meant to say is, Ben, is an idiot." I leaned my head on my arm which was propped against Max's hand.

"Sorry, Mia. I forgot you also transformed with me," Grey Matter croaked.

"Grandpa." Gwen gave the slip of paper to Max after giving me a worried glance.

As Max and Gwen collected all of the destroyed boxes of cereal, Ben and I fiddled around with my Omnitrix.

"You know. After I finish with your watch, maybe you can help me figure out mine?"

"I don't know. We're only doing this with me because my Omnitrix seems to be busted. Yours, on the other hand, seems to be just fine," I replied.

"Omnitrix?"

"Yeah. That's what squid face called it."

Ben's watch started to beep and flash.

"Come on hurry up now please," I pleaded. I so didn't want to be stuck as an alien for the entire day again, especially not Grey Matter. He was smart and all but he was just too small to be any hands-on help.

"Just a few more...done."

Red light changed Ben back into his normal self but I was still Grey Matter.

"I'm pretty sure I…"

My Omnitrix began to beep this time interrupting him. But instead of timing out, I heard it pop out and start to spin before closing back into itself.

"What's going on?" I asked Ben.

Gwen and Max came as they noticed what was happening. Max repeated my question.

"I'm not sure. Mia's watch just started to spin and glow purple kind of."

"Well, what's happening now?" I asked.

"It looks like it turned off. The part that's usually gray is black now," Gwen answered.

"Is that bad?" Ben asked.

"I think," I gulped.

"Well. We can't do much about it right now. Gwen and I will go off to buy something to snack on. Ben, I expect you to take care of Mia in her current state."

I road on Ben's palm as he walked through the store. He was probably looking for that gold sumo slammers card. I can't believe that he was still worried about that thing after what he did to me again. I know he's just a kid, but even a child should be able to see how bad the situation I was in was.

"I don't get it. What Grey Matter was doing should've fixed your watch, Mia," Ben surprised me as his comment revealed that he wasn't really thinking about what I thought he was.

"Grey Matter? You're starting to name the aliens?" I smirked.

"Well. Yeah. I can't just call them Diamond guy or smart guy. And you guys need to call me something when I transform if you guys really want me to keep a secret identity," he smiled.

We held each other's gaze awkwardly for a while when a large crash stole our attention. We looked at the wall that had been knocked down and when the dust settled a sickly green man on a giant toad came into our view.

"Hey, Greenie! Have you ever heard of a door?" Ben stood defiantly in front of the two as I quickly jumped down into one of Ben's pockets.

"You should really respect your elders, Little One. Especially when they are smarter than you. Now run along and don't try to be a hero." The toad's throat expanded quickly knocking Ben off his feet and into a shelf. I was nearly crushed in his pocket but I managed to avoid it.

"You are so lucky I can't go Hero," I heard Ben groan as the floor shook.

"Ben you gotta go after him," I jumped out onto his knee.

"How? I misused the watch for a stupid card and trapped you as an alien again, timed myself out and now I can't even save the day," he asked in defeat.

"It's not the watch that makes a hero, Ben. It's the user. You were already a hero before you found the watch. Remember when you tried to help that kid who was being bullied? You didn't have any powers back then and you knew you were weaker than JT and Cash, yet you still tried to help them."

"Easy for you to say," Ben spat, "You don't have to have a watch to be a hero. You chased them off that day and you already helped me stop two robberies yesterday without transforming. You're well-liked and brave, you don't have to ever worry about others not liking you."

I fell quiet. Those last comments were not true at all. Not for me at least. I don't know what sort of life Ben 10 Mia had but I was never the most popular girl at school.

"It wasn't always like that. But I worked hard," I began a mix of a lie and truth. "Enough of this. Are you going to save the day and be a hero? Or are you going to let people die?" At that moment we heard Max and Gwen's screams. "Or your own family?"

* * *

I screamed in fear as Ben wildly rode a scooter around the trashed market. He called out to the giant mutated bird that was harassing his family and scared it off by throwing several heavy items at it. I'm not sure how he managed to do that while keeping his balance though.

All I could do was offer advice on what and where to throw. Which routes to take. Other than that I wasn't much help.

I'm the end, Ben managed to drive off Doctor Animo and while Ben and the others talked to the manager, I went off to try and make up Ben's imminent disappointment.

"Where have you been?" Ben asked as I came hopping back into the RV.

"Somewhere."

Once I was inside Max pulled off into the roads. Galvans were surprisingly good jumpers. They almost seemed like frogs. That's how I was able to get on top of the counter to hide the golden sumo slammers card that I snagged from the store. I doubt they would miss one of this from their storage rooms.

"But where would Animo go?" I heard the three arguing.

That's where I jumped down and into the conversation. After plopping myself onto Gwen's shoulder I said, "If Animo is an animal lover that wants to take over the world with mutated animals, I would think that he would also try and bring older animals back from the dead."

"Well he did make some comments about the past and even made a BC pun," Ben commented.

"Then he would go to the museum!" Gwen finished my thought that was interrupted by her cousin.

I nodded my small head in agreement.

I used the time it took to get to the museum to prepare myself for the fight. Since I couldn't use brawns only brains, I fashioned myself a nail gun for defence and possibly to fight if I wanted to.

Gwen carried me in to face Doctor Animo together.

"You may not be as smart as I thought you were," he taunted.

"Then you might not be very smart yourself," Ben smirked.

"Since we're definitely smarter than you," Gwen joined.

Animo snarled making Max step in front of us protectively.

"Your insolence will not go unchecked. You will be taught your place by your intellectual superior," he threatened. "You see, I have built this machine…"

I aimed and fired my nail gun at Animo before he could bore us all to death. The man yelped in pain as he clutched his shoulder where a nail was now embedded. I hope he got his tetanus shot because I'm not sure how old that thing was.

"Ben! Four Arms now, before he can."

Animo's helmet fired a laser that hit two dinosaur skeletons.

"You fools, had you let me explain you would've known that my helmet doesn't just mutate animals, it can also bring the dead back to life!" he cackled as Max tackled him to the floor.

"Time to go hero," Ben turned on his Omnitrix and slammed the dial down.

I braced myself expecting to change too. But while Ben turned into the red four armed alien, I just stayed the same as Grey Matter.

"What? Why didn't you change?" Gwen came to me as Ben went off to face against the two prehistoric creatures.

"The Omnitrix. It must not be working anymore. Whatever Grey Matter did to it shut it off. But it can still be fixed. It has to. For now, we have to focus on the fight." I looked around and noticed that there was something missing. Max was holding an unconscious Animo underneath him as he tied his hands together and Ben was keeping the T-rex and woolly mammoth busy. "Didn't Animo have a mutant hamster, parakeet, and frog?"

"Now that you mention it," I hopped onto Gwen's shoulder as she dashed off before Max could say anything.

In the next room, we stumbled onto a robotic crab that was surrounded by the three mutants. They were all on the ground with blood pooling around them. The crab himself had stains on his metal body indicating that he was the culprit.

-Interesting, a Galvan on earth,- his robotic voice was directed at us as he turned to see us.

"Who are you?" Gwen asked.

-My name is Kraab. I have come for the Omnitrix. But it seems to me that you and the wielder are a bit busy at the moment. So I shall take my leave. Though, Galvan, do be a dear and give the wielder my regards. Your services as a protector will be in vain if you don't.- with that Kraab just flew out of the building through a hole in the roof. I had no clue as to how I should have reacted.

There were a lot of things that were happening out of order than from canon. This was going to be troubling since I wouldn't be able to use my knowledge of the show for everything.

"I guess we should go tell your cousin?" I squeaked.

"No. We've already got enough problems. Besides, he would try to challenge him immediately. How? I'm not sure but you already know Ben."

Her explanation made sense. So when the police came to apprehend Animo and take care of the grisly scene inside of the museum, we kept our mouths shut about the alien we saw. He would be returning soon anyway. But we could deal with him when that time came.


	3. Bounty

_**I had a lot of trouble writing this chapter. The whole time I was overthinking my writing making it impossible for me to write. At least until I forced myself to sit down and write without stopping. So bear with me if this chapter feels a little all over the place. But I certainly know y'all will be Kraabtivated.**_

Kraab brought his pincers together smashing through a couple of drones before blasting them to bits and using the shrapnel to bring even more drones down. He didn't stop there though. Using his many legs, he plowed through ground drones that had just been unleashed on him and the other bounty hunters.

Vilgax kept his gaze on Kraab. He showed a lot more promise than the other two who were just relying on their weapons. Kraab used everything he had at his disposal and even though clearly under the mental stress of battle. The one problem was that he did not stop blabbering. Rax and SixSix were the Silent types. But did he really want to sacrifice skill for silence?

—These grubs should have stayed underground if you know what I mean.— Kraab commented to Rax.

The mysterious bounty hunter ignored him and continued with his shooting before a drone slammed into him and exploded in the process.

Vilgax's eyes narrowed from inside of his tank. Rax's presence felt familiar. But he couldn't quite remember why. His thoughts that he might've been an organic were also shot down with the recent display. And the warlord did not like to have an unsolved mystery.

SixSix gurgled something that only Rax acknowledged. Tiny arms popped out of his suit holding batons that he grabbed. Using those he clubbed the remaining drones.

None of these mercenaries seemed to be team players. They each worked toward their own goals. And while Vilgax would have preferred unity among his workers, he really didn't have much of a choice.

" _You all show promise. You're all hired. What I need from you is…_ "

—The Omnitrix. Yeah. We've been over this oh great conqueror.— Kraab interrupted impatiently. —What will the reward be if I acquire it for you?—

SixSix and Rax didn't need to remove their masks in order to know they were casting deadly glares at the robot.

" _I can offer you a fleet from those that I have. However, if that is not what you desire. You can always request anything else. Nothing evades me forever after all,_ " Vilgax promised.

—Well then. We'll see each other on the wet rock down there.— Kraab's legs clanked on the metal floor as he dashed towards a pod followed by the other two mercenaries.

" _Hold on,_ "Vilgax narrowed his eyes as the floor erupted with mechanical tentacles that snaked around Six Six and Kraab. " _After my humiliating defeat against the petrosapien and the piece of_ scrahg _wielder—_ " Rax showed no emotion "— _they mentioned you both. You don't happen to know anything about that, do you?_ "

The metal parts of the mercenaries screeched as they rubbed against the tentacles. Fear flashed in them though not visible to their employer. SixSix let out a gargled noise.

—No sir. We promise. Our data banks are empty of any Earthian occupants if you would like to check— Kraab translated.

Vilgax floated in his tube glaring at the individuals. He knew who the Rax Guy was. He was sure of it. But he couldn't place a face to his build.

" _No need. No one would ever dare to double-cross me if they value their insignificant lives._ "

 _ **Mia**_

I jumped as high as I could and somersaulted in the air. When I landed I looked up at the wooden pole wear I had just draped a rope.

I was still trapped as Grey Matter even after 2 days. Ben, Max, Gwen, and I spent day 1 trying to find a way to get the watch to restart again. Then half of day 2 was spent with Grey Matter trying to figure out his own ways, with transformation breaks between them of course.

In the end, I decided to give it a rest. For now at least. I don't want to be trapped like this forever after all.

"I can't believe you guys are doing this," I swear everyone could hear Gwen's eyes roll as she said that.

"If your cousin is going to be with the watch forever, we better make sure he can use it darn well," Max explained.

Gwen scoffed. "Well, we could be using this time to find a way to bring Mia back to normal," she put her sun tanner aside and crossed her arms. "We can't let her suffer like this. She hasn't even been able to eat normal food anymore."

"It's not that bad," I tried to reassure her. "Besides. I've made peace with this. And I don't think I want to see Ben get his ass handed to him," I let out a snicker.

"If only," Gwen turned to hide the small smile tugging at her lips.

"Hey! I'm right here!" Ben cried out.

He was trying his best to hang a rubber tire on top of a scaffold. It was a monumental task for him because of his size. But at least he wasn't as small as me nor as weak.

As much as I wanted to hate him for putting me in this current situation, I couldn't really be mad at him. His only sin was being another greedy kid.

"Alright, Ben, whenever you're ready." Max stretched popping some bones.

I scurried out of the small training camp and onto Gwen's head. She was about to freak out but she noticed that it was me.

"Safe haven here," I explained to her delight.

"Of course it is!"

No sooner had she said it, a few diamond flechettes bombarded us sending us ducking for cover as they hit the side of the Rustbucket. Gwen screeched as a rogue one hit the bottle of sunscreen and drizzled some on her head.

I picked myself up from the dirt where I fell and tried my best to help Gwen clean off the excess lotion on her. This was much easier to do than help set up the training camp that Ben had just easily destroyed. All the hard work I put into the further obstacles was for nothing now. Way to go Ben.

"Ugh! Can't we do anything without my cousin ruining things!?" Gwen screeched. "Come on Mia. Inside the rustbucket, the sun won't give us a stroke and the bad company won't make us go crazy!" She directed the last part to Ben.

"Oops. Sorry." I looked back to see Diamondhead's eyes slant making him give us an apologetic look, though Gwen didn't care to see.

I turned around and settled on Gwen's shoulder instead as the door to the RV slammed shut. I leapt towards the freezer already knowing what Gwen was planning to do and opened it up for her.

"Let's get us some ice cream before it sneaks into Ben's little brain to beat us to it," she smirked.

I found myself agreeing with her. Almost everything that Grandpa Max got to last us the first week of our road trip had disappeared, courtesy of Ben Tennyson.

I already knew why the RV stopped.

"Ben," Grandpa Max called sternly.

Gwen and I immediately turned over as her cousin carefully made his way off the vehicle.

What followed next is not pretty and I do not wish to relay it. Honestly, the cartoon made his scolding seem like child's play. All I can say is that it involved a lot of ice cream at the end of the day. And boy was it delicious. Gwen and I had a blast with that tub of sweet frozen dessert. Maybe we will do it again someday in the future of our summer vacation. God, I can only hope so.

"This isn't fair," Ben whined.

"What isn't fair, Ben, is how you left us all stranded in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately for Mia and me, we have ways of entertainment," Gwen giggled.

"You won't be laughing when I…" Ben stopped mid-threat. He turned and left the rustbucket sprinting off. Gwen looked at me with a worried look on her face.

"It's not your fault," I squeaked already knowing what she was thinking about, "Ben never knows how to control himself. I like that about him, but it will also get him in trouble someday." That someday was often in the show. But I could do something about it, maybe, once I figure out a way to fix this Omnitrix replica.

"Well, I'm going to go get him."

I jumped on Gwen's shoulder and hitched a ride outside. So far, my adventures here have been taking bits of twists. Like Vilgax showing up early. And if my Galvan brain was correct. There would be further ripple effects that will change the future.

I miss the simpler times. I really do. Watching tv while in bed. Living out character lives from the comfort of my own home without having to do much. Sometimes I'd even have company with who to talk to. Figure out ways in how things could've gone much better. But there isn't any point in thinking about it or missing something that I can't return to.

"Hey, Gwen, how about that warehouse?" I pointed the girl to the building Ben hid in at the start of the series.

"You sure?" I nodded to Gwen.

As she started walking into the old place, a flash of green bathed us. Any doubt of Ben not being here was instantly washed away with it. Together, we were going to scrub that kid.

"Ben! We know you're here now!" Gwen shouted.

I looked around wondering where Ghostfreak would show up. All I could see were the washed out pieces of wood that made up this place. They were all filthy, I don't think that their original colour was black. Maybe a light brown. Then I noticed a shimmer in the air. Squinting, I could faintly make out the silhouette of Ghostfreak. I wonder if it was because of my alien sight or if it was an obvious disturbance in the air that anything could see.

"Hey Ben," I flashed a sharp smile.

Ghostfreak immediately materialized startling Gwen. _"How did you know?"_ Ghostfreak rasped in surprise.

"Simple, I noticed a shimmer in the light. Nothing can be completely invisible y'know. You just have to look for the right signs," I smirked.

"Whoa!" Gwen and I both fell as the ground shook beneath us. Floorboards stretched, bent, and splintered out as a bulge in the earth gave way to the metallic Crab's entrance.

He gazed at the peculiar group of an Ectonurite, a human, and a Galvan before speaking.

-A Galvan? A Galvan plumber? Well, I guess it makes sense. The most powerful device in the universe has to have a chaperone, in case it comes into the wrong hands of course. But that would be a matter of perspective, don't you think?-

"Kraab!?"

-Well, I see my reputation precedes me, that's going to be terrible for business. Either that or you've been informed. But I have no time to dawdle, the other bounty hunters are on…-

A chill took hold of me as Ghostfreak phased through both of us.

" _Whoa, how do I fight with this thing?_ "

-You don't.- Kraab swung his other pincer at Ben but it passed harmlessly through him.

" _I guess if I can't fight you, then you can't fight me,_ " Ghostfreak's cackle echoed in the warehouse as he disappeared. It was extremely creepy.

"Don't get cocky Ben," I warned.

" _That's very hard to do when you're all powerfu-_ " never tempt fate. If you do then you'll get the short end of the stick just like Ben did. Kraab raised his pincer and shot out foam which hardened on Ben and materialized him. " _What is this?_ " Kraab punched Ben in the face as an answer.

I wasn't going to be standing by and do nothing. I scrambled away from Gwen and jumped onto the bounty hunter and made my way inside of him. Circuitry ran everywhere and the inside of his body was surprisingly roomy for me.

There was a hard movement telling me that Kraab was on the move and probably fighting Ben. I had to hurry fast and do whatever I had to do to mess with Kraab's systems.

The whole place lit up with a soft yellow glow warm to the touch. I was surprised, I didn't know what this meant but shortly after I could hear the sound of the Omnitrix exiting transformation.

Kraab was able to control the Omnitrix just like Tetrax. What the hell. The surprises were really endless for this world. I wasn't even sure if the information I knew about the real series was even going to work anymore. What if in the end, everything is different. Like Vilgax actually being a good guy and Azmuth being the evil alien. Where even was Azmuth anyway? I have a freaking second Omnitrix that has me stuck as a Galvan! How is he not noticing anything!?

I entered a mindless rage and started pulling out every single cable in sight. I just didn't give a fuck anymore.

-What is going on?- sparks flew out everywhere making me search for a way out. But Kraab's erratic movement were making it hard for me to know which way was up and where right was.

"Hi, I don't know what you're doing but I know that it's bad. And I'm going to stop you for it," I warned as I spotted an opening in the metal.

Several tough shakes told me that Kraab was banging on his armour trying to find a way to get me out. I chuckled, he and I wanted the same thing, for me to get out. But him trying his best to accomplish it was sabotaging my attempts at doing it myself. And it was getting dangerous for me to stay inside because of all the electricity going haywire inside of him.

-But I'm not doing anything bad.- he pleaded.

"That's what they all say," I scoffed.

I knew that he was a bounty hunter after the Omnitrix for Vilgax. He couldn't hide that fact from me. He couldn't trick me into believing otherwise either.

My foot snagged on a wire and pulled it out of its place. There were sounds of machines powering down and then Kraab stopped moving.

"Yes!" I cried out in victory. I helped take down an alien with nothing but brains! Even if it was by accident.

Ben should try to think smarter sometimes instead of with his fists. Though it's impossible since he's just a little boy obsessed with the fighting genre. I mean, SUMO Slammers!? Who wants to see oversized naked people hugging each other's sweaty bodies? Just disgusting.

"Mia! Are you okay?" Ben asked as I jumped out of the now immobile Kraab.

"Yeah. But you should be ready, there are more that are coming," I warned.

"How do you…?"

"Kraab's system," I said without hesitating.

As if I had summoned them by mentioning them, Tetrax and Sixsix appeared in the distance. SixSix landed right in front of us with his jetpack and scanned us both.

" _Rickaed au Trixan,"_ he chattered opening his palm to us. _"Se vu,"_ he flexed his clawed fingers.

"I think he wants you to give him the watch," I guessed.

Ben looked at me with determination in his eyes. "Well, I'm not going to give it up-" he raised the Omnitrix up to Sixsix's face "-And I doubt he'll leave without it, so we'll have to beat his ass to make him understand."

SixSix pulled back and drew out his guns as Ben slammed the Omnitrix.

- _UPGrade_ -

I guess it was a good choice. All three of the bounty hunters had technology that could be controlled on them. SixSix was a cyborg, if Kraab came into the fight again he was entirely a robot, and Tetrax had somewhat of an exoskeleton too. But I don't think we had to worry about him. He was on our side and would be helping us.

"Ben, cover that bounty hunter up. You should be able to control most parts of him!"

- _I'm way ahead of ya-_ Ben gave a mechanical chuckle as the BH was smothered in black and green circuitry.

He froze in place for a few seconds before Ben took over, I guess. SixGrade raised his hand up to his face. He wiggled the fingers and pranced around before Upgrade's eye looked over at me.

- _I think I'm gonna like th… guh!_ \- Tetrax slammed into SixGrade. - _Oh. So you want to play rough huh? Well then, bring it on. Summo! Slammer! TIIIMEE!_ -

Two rocket launchers generated on the shoulders while his fingers grew into long claws that dragged on the floor. SixGrade also seemed to have grown at least a foot making him an intimidating figure towering over Tetrax.

"Wait! Tetrax! The wielder is a good…" Tetrax shot something at me and I became trapped inside of a green sphere. "No! Tetrax! Listen to me!" I pounded on the glass. Grunting and using all of my weak strength, I began rolling the marble towards the feet of the thundering titans and tried to grab Tetrax's attention. I don't know what I was thinking and I wonder what caused me to become so stupid at that moment because, and thankfully, Tetrax kicked me aside far away from the battle and into the barn where all this started.

"Oh wow. This is not fun," I said to no one trying to hold in the puke that wanted to come out as I wobbled inside my prison.

My marble made a shrill tink as I crashed into someone causing me to stop. I looked up to see the frozen form of Kraab and began to get an inkling of an idea. But in order to make it, I had to get out of my marble first.

"I can't believe I'm even thinking about doing this. I mean, Kraab just attacked us. And now I'm gonna tryna bring him back to life?" Grunting, I started walking like a gerbil up each ramp I could find trying to get a high enough distance. "What would Ben do? Oh, I don't know. Wait for teh Omnitrix to time out? Oh wait, I can't do that. Why!? Because I'm fucking trapped in transformation." I ranted through gritted teeth unable to tell who I was more angry at myself? Or Benjamin Kirby Tennyson?

"Whoa-AAh!" I forgot to watch where I was going and now I found myself plummeting to the ground. Thankfully it was what I was aiming to do. Just not so soon. I could only hope that the distance I gained would be enough to shatter whatever it was that was containing me. But apparently not.

The moment I hit the ground, I bounced back up strongly into the roof which sent me into another direction to a wooden beam that was reduced to splinters under my contact. Each ricochet sent me face-first into the sphere and kept me smashing into the surface until I finally broke free by crashing right into Kraab.

The minor impact somehow managed to shake something inside of him to activate him.

His eyes shined with light as his entire body whirred with his processors loading inside of him. Slowly his limbs moved in complete robotic motions as if testing to see if anything was damaged. Claws clasped together quickly several times until satisfied that they were operating well. The floor rocked as his crab legs walked forward and back before sentience lit him up.

He turned his gaze towards me and I gulped. He looked mad.

"Wait! Before you eat me or kill me, I just want to say that your bounty is outside fighting Tetrax and SixSix." I said raising my hands to shield my face. After nothing came to me, no pain or cold metal death grasps, I looked up to see him staring at me, pincer close to my face. For a while, he didn't respond, his optics just kept readjusting themselves during the time making me uncomfortable.

Kraab retracted his pincer and stood up straight, creaking in the process.

"No one else knows that you are out of stasis so maybe if you hurry, you can get to the Omnitrix first and get it to Vilgax yourself for the reward?" I offered hoping that Ben could take care of himself against Kraab if he decided to help the boy.

-You are the Omnitrix's protector?- he inquired.

"What?"

-You are the Omnitrix's protector, are you not? You are a Galvan after all.- I stared blankly at him. -If you are then you should know that I was the one hired to retrieve the device from Vilgax's possession. And SixSix is a friend of mine helping me in the task.- He turned to where the fight was taking place and nodded to Tetrax. -He's the wildcard. We do not know his true purpose, motives, or identity. We are only here to make sure that the Omnitrix doesn't fall into the wrong hands. And if you have deemed the human worthy of keeping the Omnitrix, as guardian of the device, we will submit to your decision and protect the wielder.- He bowed his head.

"Uh, about that," I chuckled nervously. "Actually, can we just deal with Tetrax? And then I need to talk to you about something."

As I hoped onto Kraab's shoulder, the Omnitrix's timing out beep rang out and cast red light into the warehouse.

Kraab and I came out ready with a battle plan. SixSix spared a glance in our direction before being swatted into several crates.

Tetrax gave us a menacing empty look with his mask before showing that he already had an unconscious Ben in his grasp. I looked around worriedly for Max and Gwen and found them on the floor unconscious too. Anger filled me and the trust and hope I had on Tetrax vanished. All I wanted was to lay it in on him.

Kraab broke into a quick stride as Tetrax brought out one of his hoverboards from his waist. Kraab raised his claw and opened fire completely missing some of the shots. But the ones that landed seemed to be blocked by a forcefield.

-Quick, Galvan. I need you to route all the power you can into my weapons systems in order for me to breach his shield.-

I nodded and dove back inside his shell. Because of the time I've spent as a Galvan, I was beginning to understand most of the things my brain was telling me to do. Rewiring these processors would shut down the surge of power going to his shield banks. Grounding several of the others would limit power to his movement. And then inserting a couple of each into one of the panels would finish the job by powering up his energy blasts.

"Done!"

A few blasts followed by nothing told me to undo everything I did and I exited to see what the damage was.

Tetrax was on the floor and next to him were the shattered remains of his hoverboard. I could see a large area of his back was seared with soot. Definitely from Kraab's blast. And Ben was sitting up in his Heatblast transformation looking confused.

"YOU." Ben picked himself up and started forming a fireball in his hands. "Let go of Mia, you pile of bolts, before I melt you into scrap," he glared.

"Wait, Ben!" I raised my hands up to calm him. "He's on our side. He was only trying to protect you."

"Protect us? What have you done with Mia?"

"Eh. Bad choice of words. He was trying to protect the watch. He's sort of a bodyguard or retriever for it. But I explained everything to him. He thinks you're doing good. So he's going to talk to the other bounty hunter and convince him to let you keep the watch but they'll be around to keep an eye on things in case Vilgax comes around again."

"The other bounty hunter? Do you mean the one who knocked out Grandpa Max and Gwen? Yeah, I _trust_ that they'll keep us safe." Heatblast rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just say that Unicorns are going to come around the corner and that we'll live in a happy paradise for the rest of our lives. That sounds much more realistic than this Bullcrap."

"Please, Ben. Just trust me on this. Have I ever been wrong? Or do you just think I'm stupid," I did my best to give him puppy dog eyes, but my Galvan face kind of made it disturbing.

"Fine." Ben relented after hesitating.

Grandpa Max and Gwen were alright. Ben and I tried to help Kraab drag Tetrax over to the warehouses, but we ended up letting him take care of it by himself. It was impossible for us given his size and physique, plus he was made out of solid Diamonds! Or whatever was the space equivalent. Kraab didn't have any problems though since he was a robot, I think.

They were waking up by the time the three of us managed to drag Tetrax over to the abandoned warehouse. It was nearly impossible. Given his large physique and what he was made out of, he weighed more than a ton. We were all panting and sweaty by the time we reached them. Me most of all given that I couldn't lift beyond my weight.

Gwen shrieked alarming me. "What are they doing here?!" She pointed at Kraab then behind her at the still unconscious SixSix. I wonder what exactly Ben did to _him_.

"Relax, Cuz. Mia says they're okay. And the Crab hasn't tried to fight me yet," Ben reassured her nonchalantly.

Gwen didn't say much more but did seem to watch Kraab closely.

Once everything was settled and we all explained what happened so far with the Omnitrix to Kraab, he was finally able to start helping me with the situation. SixSix took some convincing to let Ben stay with the Omnitrix, but he realized that he couldn't take it away now that there was another duplicate on Earth. Tetrax was safely secured and regularly administered with a knockout gas to keep us safe.

I tried to resettle myself in the small makeshift box that I was given to be still in. It was massively uncomfortable but Kraab's tampering was taking a lot of time. So I was grateful that I didn't have to remain standing. But still, very uncomfortable.

"How long is this supposed to take, Metal head?" Ben asked, annoyed.

-It is a simple diagnostics check. Then I can determine what I can do. Which isn't much, I'm not the creator of the device after all. I'm just a gun for hire that got the short end of the stick from Vilgax and was offered to be a pain in his ass.- SixSix gurgled in agreement.

A few more minutes passed and he finally allowed me to rise. -Seems like everything is in place. Now we just need a Galvanic Mechamorph, if you please.- Kraab turned to look at Ben. The kid couldn't do anything other than look hopelessly confused.

"Upgrade." I clarified for him holding in a snicker.

"Oh, sorry," he sheepishly said. "But, uh." He raised his hand to show that the watch was still recharging. Ben flinched as Kraab moved toward him, but he thankfully allowed him to do whatever it was that allowed the watch to recharge, then a brief flash of green later and Upgrade was standing in front of us.

- _What do I do now?_ -

Kraab pointed at my Omnitrix. -Now you head into the Omnitrix with me in control of what you do. I do not trust that you would not try tampering with the copy in hopes of improving your own device.- His explanation made sense. In the Reboot, Ben upgraded his own watch and nearly unleashed an invasion on the planet. Plus he also destroyed his Mechamorph transformation.

I felt my back gain a significant amount of weight, causing me to drop on my butt. Except that I never felt the stiff blow on the floor. Instead, I found myself floating inside of a dark void with huge thick green circuits running around in the far distance.

"What the fuck? Wha-where am I?" A blinding flash of green light forced me to close and cover my eyes. Even with my eyes closed, I could still see the green glow through my eyelids **and** hands.

I was finally able to gaze in awe at the green orb in front of me once the intense light dissipated. The orb shifted and changed. Limbs started growing out of it as it elongated into a spheroid. The top seemed to split apart as it elongated sideways. After its proto body was finished, details started to form on it. The top became an obvious head and tendrils protruded from the bottom.

"Azmuth." I didn't need any more observations to recognize his form.

"Correct, human. How do you know about me? Your species is still unaware of the vastness of the universe, save for a few individuals. And, how is it that you managed to replicate my invention?" The greatest mind in the universe floated at my eye level. He didn't seem mad about the omnitrix copy. He actually looked interested.

"I, uh. Don't actually know. That's what I wanted to ask you, wait. How did you know about this copy?" I raised my hand, but to my surprise, there was no omnitrix on it. He pointed at his mind and I got it.

"I am not Azmuth. I am a failsafe built into the device in case anyone ever tried to replicate it. Should anyone succeed, it would mean that they got all the information directly from it. That includes the code, and because of its complexity, the code would be left untouched and completely copied. In it lies my digitized consciousness. And I fully doubt that my true self actually knows about this situation."

"Because he secluded himself, huh," I quickly remembered where Ben found Azmuth for the first time in the movie."

"Correct again. You are truly an interesting being."

"And you are actually nicer than the real Azmuth." My compliment earned me a questioning brow raise. "So about the Omnitrix, I got this small problem…"

"Yes. I know." He turned his back towards me. I have no clue what he was looking at. There wasn't anything near us. Just an empty void. The Void of the Omnitrix if I had to guess. "You're trapped in alien form. I'm the one responsible for that."

"WHAT?!" I exclaimed. He was the reason why I couldn't be human anymore? What kind of cruel punishment was that? I didn't even ask to have a duplicated Omnitrix! That is so not on me. Galvans have a sadistic sense of justice.

"That is the first thing you are wrong about. Possibly among many others. We Galvans are not sadistic." He said a matter of factly.

"Then why the fuck did you trap me in Galvan form?!" I screamed hoarsely. Right now he was the villain to me. Worse than Vilgax.

"He is the reason why I did that." Confusion slapped me in the face erasing my anger just as quickly as it appeared.

"What?" A shiver ran down my spine. "Whaddya mean?"

"Vilgax cannot know that there is a duplicate Omnitrix. You say you don't know how this happened, but the conqueror will not care." He turned to look at me. His grave expression resembled the ones he always gave Ben when he was acting childish. "At the very least, he would not stop until he found a way to mass produce the Omnitrix and the Universe would call to the sound of his voice."

That was bad. I had to admit it. But, I didn't know whether I would ever give up being myself to stop Vilgax. I just wanted to be myself again.

I was on the verge of tears when Azmuth continued. "You do not have to be trapped in that form, however. I have observed you, and you seem to be of a good nature. At least good enough to allow you the possession of the Omnitrix. So I have decided to give you access to it."

"But I thought that…"

"Yes. The threat of Vilgax is not over. It has just begun. But right now, the Omnitrix is active, and in the same position as your own. So I don't see how Vilgax would notice the activation of a second one. Although I do have several conditions."

"Oh anything!" I practically jumped.

"Because we cannot allow Vilgax to find out of your Omnitrix's existence, it shall remain offline. I built the device to have its own server of alien DNA in case of emergencies. So I will allow you to choose 5 DNA strands of the aliens you want. You're strange, Mia. And I can sense that you know a lot about the Universe that you shouldn't be aware of.

"Your Omnitrix will also remain in camouflage mode" -he raised a finger to silence me as I opened my mouth to ask a question- "Your Omnitrix hasn't been in that mode. The reason why it's been black is that it has been shut down until your friend tried to tamper with it. My last condition is that I will remain active as your Omnitrix's AI. I will oversee all of your actions. I will help you with anything you need. And I shall provide advice when you need it. You may ask questions now."

"So, if my playlist will only include 5 DNA samples, does that mean that I can't scan any aliens to unlock more transformations?" I remembered the times that Ben had unlocked new transformations in the original series. All the times an alien touched his watch or how certain circumstances forced him into a transformation he knew nothing about.

Azmuth answered without missing a beat, "They will not unlock any existing DNA from the Codon Stream. Instead, their DNA will be sampled and your Omnitrix will create an exact duplicate. Down to the clothing they were wearing. The only difference would be the colour of your eyes."

"Cool. Well, I've actually given it a lot of thought beforehand on what aliens I would love to be if I had an Omnitrix too." If my comment made Azmuth even more suspicious, he didn't show it. "I definitely want to keep the Mechamorph. Who knows when I'll have to deal with technology, and I won't be able to encounter any here on Earth. Also can't forget about Conductoids, I absolutely adore their species. Citrakayah, I don't like Kinecelerans because they look too much like dinosaurs.

"So that's 3. I need one that flies and can be in the water. So how about Jetray? He's what, an aerophibian or something? And Chromastone. He can absorb a lot of energy based attacks. I don't remember his species, all I know is that he was the Petrosapiens' guardian or something. And I think that's it."

Azmuth nodded, "Done."

I was surprised, "Seriously? Just like that?"

"I said what I was going to allow you to do, I will keep my promise." And with a snap of his fingers I was back in the waking world. Bathed in Purple light this time.

"Mia!" My face flushed with heat as Gwen Tennyson wrapped me up in a strong warm hug.

I was me again. I tested my hands, wiggling my fingers every which way, before returning the embrace. Tears started leaking from my eyes as I buried my face into her shoulder and let out a relieved sob. I never thought that I would ever experience human contact without the risk of getting crushed. My thoughts had been that my omnitrix was a poor replica that had trapped me in the final form for the rest of my life.

Beeping followed by washing green light was followed by another additional hug. And what I guessed was the hand of Grandpa Max also rested on my head stroking my hair.

"Glad to have you back, Mia," Ben whispered.

"That nightmare is finally over for you, Mia," I shivered at Gwen's voice in my ear.

"I'm so happy to be back!" I exclaimed.

3rd POV

Kraab finished chaining Tetrax to the ship. The captive hadn't uttered a single word during the process. Not even to shut up the Robot's blabbering. He just remained motionless. Kraab couldn't tell but behind the mask, the mercenary was observing for the right time to strike.

-I don't know. You could help us in our fight against Vilgax. End his reign of terror. So that mercenaries like us can finally start doing our jobs without being afraid of pissing off the big man. Think about it. It'll save us a lot more time if you agree to help us. We don't really want to waste time going to another part of the galaxy where the plumbers are still active.- Leaving it at that, Kraab left the compartment and joined his partner at the front of the ship.

The ship disappeared from radar and eyeshot as it entered the atmosphere. Vilgax wouldn't be able to see their treachery once they were camouflaged. That is if they were to be allowed to perform said treachery. But in the back where Rax was imprisoned, spikes of diamond popped out of his body, shattering the manacles and breaching the hull of the ship.

"The Omnitrix is my ticket to safety."


	4. Back to Normal

"After all this excitement we've had thanks to the watch you two found, I think we deserve a little break to enjoy a normal day. What do you say, kids?" Max asked.

After I returned back to normal yesterday, we'd hit the road and while Max got behind the wheel for a 7-hour drive, Gwen, Ben and I had quiet time to relax. Ben, of course, didn't like the break from the weird and decided to spend the time messing with the Omnitrix sometimes going ahead of us to scout out for places to save. Gwen spent time on her computer working on who knows what. Maybe her 401k plan.

I didn't do anything like them. I was just glad to finally be myself again. Not being stuck as a Galvan or Vulpinmancer or Pyronite or any of that shit was awesome. I actually spent the day thinking about how everything in this world was much different than the show I grew up watching. There were two Omnitrices, Vilgax came and fought us personally on day one - and I was able to kick his butt -, and the bounty hunters were actually hired by good guys first and Tetrax was somehow a villain who didn't talk at all?

To be honest, I thought if everything was different, I would be getting scared shitless. I'm in _The_ danger now, not watching it. And I was, I was batshit terrified, but I was also liking it. The fear of the unknown and my easy fragile mortality against aliens was overshadowed by the exhilaration of not knowing what would happen next. It wasn't boring or scary, it was thrilling.

I was also able to finish the journal/notes I promised myself to make about what I knew from the entire series, which was almost everything. The only things that I didn't know anything about were what I considered the dullest episodes. Or the childish ones. Or the cringiest ones. But they thankfully weren't many. I also spent a lot of time wondering about my new found friend in Azmuth. I have no clue how exactly he was going to be offering me advice now. He hadn't talked to me in my mind at any point. And I sure as heck couldn't be trying to talk to him in front of the others.

I know what you're thinking. _But Mia, can't you just transform and go somewhere to talk to him alone?_ I'm sorry, but I'm finally me. I absolutely refuse to even consider changing into an alien at the moment if it isn't to fight some kind of criminal or save a life. I just want to be me. My initial experience with the Omnitrix left me scared of never being able to be me.

"Sure. Why not?" Gwen replied to Max's offer. I found myself nodding with her in agreement. A little more of normalcy before we got back to aliens would be amazing.

"I think I know where to go. But first, let's fill up the Rustbucket. And you kids as well, you guys can get what you want," Max pulled over to a gas station on the road.

I got off the RV behind Gwen and waited for Ben to finish putting on his shoes in order to join us. I looked around and spotted an ATM on the side of the wall behind some gas pumps next to the entrance to the small shop. I groaned, I knew what episode we were on now.

"I think you kids can do with $10. Get yourselves something while I get some more cash to fill up the Rustbucket," Max began to walk toward the ATM whistling happily before I interrupted.

"Uhm. Max? Ben told me about his Aunt Vera once, is she the one you're thinking about visiting?" Ben and Gwen were already inside the store when I asked this, better to be safe since I had no idea what Ben talked about to Mia 10.

"That's actually a great idea, Mia! It's been such a long time since my sister's seen the kids. And I'm sure she'd love to meet a friend of Ben's as well. Now, why don't you join Ben and Gwen? I know how they are. If they don't actively plan a split in something, they'll try to take as much as they can for themselves." I gave a half-hearted nod and went inside the store. The thugs that try to steal the ATM seemed to be a little further down the road.

As Gwen and her cousin argued about who got what flavour of ice-cream, I hung in the back of the store and activated my Omnitrix in preparation for the problems that were close by. Or at least I tried to activate the watch. The stupid thing wasn't popping its faceplate up and refused to do anything else as I frantically slid the ring every which way.

"Come on Azmuth, work with me here. I thought we were past the Omnitrix deactivation." I slapped it twice and it suddenly sprung up. I spun the dial again, but no silhouettes were being displayed. So I just slapped the thing down, ignoring future Azmuth's complaints of it not supposed to be slapped. But instead of transforming, it turned blue.

"That's fucking perfect. It's a fucking perfect time for a reboot," I groaned.

"Move the fuck out of the way old Geezer!" gruff shouts drifted in from outside.

"I think I'll have a rocky road!" Ben called as he ran out of the store.

The cashier at the front looked at the door in confusion. He looked from the waffle cone in his hand back to the door looking like he wanted to scratch his head. Turning to Gwen he asked, "So, does he want the ice-cream, or not?" Gwen just shrugged.

I walked up to the guy and said what I always thought about Ben's exclamations, "The boy just wants to seem cool even though we never know what he's talking about. But I'll take 2 scoops of vanilla," I chirped my request.

As soon as Gwen paid the $10 I pulled her outside with me to watch the fight unfolding outside. "So why didn't you go with Ben and help him? He really needs all the help he can get. That ego of his makes him do some of the stupidest things no one can think of," She asked.

I raised my Omnitrix in response. It was still glowing blue but now the dial was spinning wildly. "Oh." I nodded.

"He's got it handled anyway. Ben has the potential to be useful when he wants to," I told her.

We watched as Fourarms ripped away the chain hook from the redneck and used it to tear their truck to shreds. Scraps of metal flew into the ground embedding themselves deeply.

"You retarded four-armed freak! That was my truck!" The man charged at Four Arms yelling. I have no clue what was going through that man's head. Cause he was basically a harmless rabbit charging a pit bull. Four Arms nonchalantly swatted him on the head knocking him out.

"Told ya," I looked at Gwen and cockily swept my bangs to the side to her dismay.

"Oh Yeah! Beating The Bad Guys Is So Freaking Cool!" he smiled. "I Don't Think Anything Could Stop The Man," he chuckled. "So, Grandpa. Where Are We Off To Next?"

"We're going to you're Aunt Vera's. Now, why don't you help me with the gas and let the girls eat their ice-cream?"

"Aw Man. A Normal Day Isn't As Cool."

* * *

My Omnitrix's reboot was painfully slow. 3 Hours before we arrived at Aunt Vera, it was barely enveloped in Mechamorph colour schemes. I spent the day re-reading the notes I wrote about the series. I kid you not, I spend a ton of time reading through the notes. I guess I just wanted to be prepared for anything that could happen. Although, I couldn't really do anything if the Celestialsapiens decided to erase my memories regarding my show knowledge when they change the Universe's appearance.

Ben and Gwen perked up when my Omnitrix finally finished its calibration. The green circuits glowed intensely before shifting into a purple colour. The original bulkiness of the Omnitrix shifted and shrank before all the circuitry seeped back inside of the watch leaving a sleeker version of the prototype. It was perfectly camouflaged as a regular purple sweatband. But instead of it being fuzzy like they normally are, it appeared to be smoother and resembled Ben 10k's gauntlets instead.

"Neato," Ben's voice shook in amazement.

"That was actually cool," I smiled at Gwen's comment.

"But now it's back to boring old people." Gwen beckoned me to sit next to her in front of the laptop as Ben continued gawking and making faces at the seniors we passed by. The closer we got to the inside of the settlement, the more frequent they became.

Gwen and I were reading an article about the effects of Dementia and experiments concerning mice in order to find a cure when Ben suddenly freaked out.

"Did you guys see that?" Ben must've seen the Limax that backflipped off the roof. I didn't bother to check and focused more on what Gwen and I were doing.

We switched to planning her classes this coming fall. She wanted to go into journalism and some computer tech classes. She was also qualified to start English Literature AP and go to Algebra 2. I gave her some advice to maybe take some self-defence classes in order to know how to fight properly. She was already a 5th-grade belt, but she needed the push in order for her to get the black belt she had in Alien Force sooner.

"Grandpa, I think the sun is starting to get to Ben, he thinks that these retirees are the least bit interesting," Gwen complained. "Hey, Mia. Now that your watch is working again, why don't you try one of the aliens out? It would be interesting to see what you can do with one of Ben's Aliens. You might be able to use them better." I really couldn't say no to her curious smile.

I wasn't going to tell them that I chose to not have Ben's aliens. Max would be suspicious of me if I knew which aliens I could use and why I chose them specifically. So I couldn't say anything about not being able to use Ben's aliens anymore.

Pretending to think that I still had the same functions as Ben, I felt around the band for a button only to be surprised that it activated by itself at the contact of my hand. Purple light glowed in my face as silhouettes appeared showcasing the aliens I could turn into. I felt around more and stumbled into another function. By touching the top near my fingers, it produced a dial that slid up into view. Testingly, I pulled my hand away and the dial returned to its place inside and the band went back to normal. That was useful.

I scrolled through the shadowy icons trying to decide which one I should try out to amaze the Tennysons. Chromastone, I can't demonstrate his powers without any energy; Upgrade, too mundane to show off; Jetray, I don't think he could fit in the RV. Fasttrack was my best option.

After my hand carefully pushed the dial in, I was enveloped in purple light and suddenly I was a purple cat alien sitting next to Gwen.

"Oh, man! Why don't I have that alien?" Ben cried.

"So, what does it do?" Gwen asked ignoring Ben's moans.

I tentatively moved my legs and walked next to Max, then I looked to the back where the bunk beds were – I slept on the bottom bunk with Gwen while Ben slept on the top bunk – and raced there becoming a blur of black and purple.

"Whoa. Just like XLR8," Ben observed.

"But what are those things on your back? Wings? Can you use them to fly? And where's your mouth? Are you wearing a mask, or is it actually the alien's face?" Gwen's questions painted a description that fit wrong with what I remember Fasttrack looking like.

"So, what will you call that alien?" Ben asked bringing me out of my thoughts.

"How about Backspin? It goes as fast as a car, and when they suddenly accelerate, their tires seem to run backwards because of how fast they're going. Or how about Burnout? Which one do you think fits it better?"

"Well, Burnout is a little too on the nose. But Backspin has a little bit of personality to it. Plus, I think if you do a back kick, you'll do so much destruction with those razors on your arms and legs."

Before we had more time to talk about Backspin, Max parked the RV and got up telling us that we arrived at Aunt Vera's.

"Uhm, Mia? How are… I think it would be best if you stayed here until you timed out," Max cleared his throat at my appearance.

"Oh, uh sure. I wanted to see how this alien looks anyway. See you guys in a bit." So as they climbed out of the Rustbucket I walked into the bathroom where I could see my reflection properly.

So, I was actually much different in appearance to the show's alien. But I still looked like a cat alien. And I was still bipedal, obviously, or else I would've been the first to know that I was much different. The thing was that I now had talons in my feet. I dragged it up and plopped it up to inspect it while keeping balance on one foot. 3 talons with very sharp ends served as my toes. And there was a pad on my heel where I could summon an extra talon making my feet look like heels. I guess they were for stopping. On the show, Fasttrack always had a bad time trying to stop during high speeds. I wonder if they could work on concrete or if it was only for soft grounds like dirt.

My face was weird as well. There was some kind of flap covering my mouth. It was what Gwen was asking if it was a mask. Nope, it was just a smooth flap that looked out of place among my fur. Maybe it was like XLR8's faceplate, to protect me from the high-speed winds, but what about my eyes? You would think that they would be more important to protect against damage.

The biggest changes to the alien were the flaps on my back. They kind of looked like the shards on Diamondhead but smaller. They were also wider and I was able to move them horizontally as if flapping them. I think they could also stretch a bit further, another set of brakes perhaps.

Something that caught my attention was my lack of an Omnitrix symbol. I didn't seem to have it on my chest or on my arm or hand or anywhere I looked for it. I read a fanfic once that mentioned a camouflage mode for the Omnitrix. It would make it so that the Omnitrix symbol would never appear on transformations.

"Well then, Mia. It seems as though nothing you think you know will actually happen. Do you really need those notes then?" Backspin's face looked back at me with a judgemental expression. "You're all alone, not even that Azmuth program stuck with you to help."

* * *

Max was going to kill me. I was quiet the entire time we spent with Aunt Vera before eating her pudding. I kept my hand hidden from view trying to keep suspicion off me. It was easy though, Ben was desperate to do something that could be fun and Gwen was excitedly talking to Vera.

My brain kept wandering to the moment I spent in front of the mirror berating myself. I had no idea what had happened and why I began to demean myself. All I remember was wanting it to stop and then smashing the mirror. But I timed out seconds before my punch landed making my normal self take all the damage. Now, I was here with my hand wrapped in toilet paper trying not to bleed on anything.

I don't even know what I'm going to tell Max. A lapse in my judgement? 'Hey, Max. I just wanted to tell you that I kind of smashed your mirror because I went a little crazy for a moment?' Yeah. That would work wonders.

"Are you guys hungry? I think I still have some Mold leftover from yesterday," Vera offered.

I mindlessly nodded in agreement with the others and made my way to the kitchen table. Vera's gelatinous concoction looked nastier in real life than it did in the show. It actually reminded me how weird the backgrounds usually appeared in the show. Curiously, I scanned the room. I couldn't see any of the staticky background native to the first season. Everything actually looked normal and realistic. But, again, how was I supposed to know if something looks cartoony? Cause the family trio also looked just how they are on the show but realistic. I was on the verge of an existential crisis when Ben poked me.

"Hey, Mia. This is just as boring as I imagined it. Do you want to get out of here and have some fun?" he offered. I smiled and nodded, I needed to get my mind off these thoughts I was having and this seemed to be a great way to do it.

"Uhm, I have to go to the bathroom!" Ben and I yelled in unison and bolted out of the dining room.

"Oh, my. Together?" My face flushed at Vera's question, it did seem a little suspicious and not in a good way of fighting monsters.

Instead of heading in the direction of the bathroom though, I pulled Ben with me to the front door and made a dash outside.

Ben and I activated our Omnitrices at the same time and transformed.

"Ghost-Freak."

— _Ameliorate!_ —

"So, you named your Upgrade, Ameliorate?" Ghostfreak rasped. "What does that even mean?"

— _Ameliorate means to make something better. It's English speak for Upgrade_ — I explained. — _Now shut up. And how about we go for a joyride instead._ — My eye formed a smile as I enveloped a nearby golf cart in black and purple circuitry.

I caused the golf cart to lower closer to the ground and sprout out exhaust vents in the back. Ghost-Freak climbed on board, or floated onto me, and grabbed onto the steering wheel. Since he didn't have any feet, I took it upon myself to make the car move forward. Ben would only be in charge of the steering. Teamwork makes the dream work.

"Hey, where is freaky neighbour, Marty, going with a huge rolled-up carpet?" Ghost-Freak asked noticing the Limax Marty.

— _Should we follow him?_ —

"Duh."

We silently followed him keeping our distance behind to make sure he couldn't see our obviously different golf cart. But I forgot about the other Senior residents. They were able to recognize the colour scheme the cart had and associate it with a Mechamorph busting our cover.

"Mechamorph!" Two Limax hissed. Their calls brought the attention of three others.

In order to keep suspicion away from Marty, I chose to slow down and allow the Limax to catch up to us. Ben and I had to fight them now.

"Rate, it looks like we're going to have to fight them."

— _Yeah. I know_ — I let out a robotic sigh. —But it'll be better if you fight them while being invisible. Harder for them to prepare for you.—

I'm pretty sure that he heard me cause when one of the Limax stretched their arms out to grab on to me, he was pushed back by something invisible.

"Mechamorph. State your purpose on planet Terra and reveal your Galvan creators' location." One of them hissed violently as he tried to tear a piece of me off. All he was able to do was scratch my door before Ben lifted him into the air and sent him sailing over the rooftops.

Another Limax, an old woman, was successful in ripping off one of my doors. I screamed in pain before generating a new one. It was surprisingly painful to me. It actually felt like one of my hands were being ripped.

Furiously, I moved my eye to the back end of the cart and shot off a purple laser cutting the Woman Limax in half and watched it dissolve into a useless puddle. The two remaining Limax stopped chasing us and stood glaring angrily as we sped off after Marty.

* * *

 **Vilgax the Conqueror**

The Chimeran resided in the rehabilitation tank with most of his body badly damaged. After the confrontation with the Petrosapien protector, his body was even further in bad shape.

Right now Rax was in his presence displaying the betrayal of the two other mercenaries who had gone with him to retrieve the Omnitrix. If Vilgax had his entire face pristine, a sour look would have been scrutinizing the entire feed.

The female Petrosapien that had defeated him was nowhere to be found in the entire thing. Instead, she seemed to have been replaced with a Galvan. One that was intent on speaking to Rax. Peculiar indeed. His suspicion of the sole mercenary that hasn't betrayed him yet increased.

" _And what happened to the other two?"_ He demanded.

In response, Rax changed the feed to his escape. The feed showed an empty cargo bay and the sounds of shackles shaking. Two small explosions puffed out some smoke and then a door opened to show Kraab staring right into the video.

Without any hesitation, Rax sliced through the Android. SixSix turned taking out all of his guns and training them on him, except that he bumped into the steering wheel and caused the ship to lurch forward, and because they were still caught in the earth's gravity, they were all thrown off their balance.

Rax crashed into one of the seats. He tried his best not to damage the controls, he needed this ship to get to Vilgax, as he swung his plasma blade at SixSix. The other mercenary though didn't care about the ship getting damaged. If he needed to, he would trap himself and Rax on the planet in order to keep his objective. So to Rax's surprise, he aimed his weapons at the controls and window.

Only one shot managed to land because Rax stepped in the way and took in the blasts. But the one that didn't get absorbed was the one aimed for the window. Air was sucked out violently all at once forcing Kraab to knock SixSix out. The two crashed through the window shattering most of it and leaving from view.

Rax wasn't knocked out because of his diamond powers though. Hidden from Vilgax's view in the camera, Rax's feet were crystalised to the floor with spikes popping out of his feet for good measure.

Vilgax nodded impressed. This bounty hunter was starting to show his worth. Despite being captured, Rax was able to uncover his partners' treacherous ways and eliminate them.

"You can go back down there and figure out a way to get the Omnitrix into your hands. You will be my vessel for I am no longer whole enough to do it myself. The Petro pest made sure of that. I will have them under surveillance in the meantime to keep tabs on the Galvan protector you encountered."

-Sir. We have detected a strong signal in the codon retrieval channel.- One of Vilgax's sentinels announced.

" _Interesting."_

* * *

 _ **Mia**_

We watched closely as Marty stretched his legs over the fence and set the rolled-up carpet on the ground near the dumpster. Ben, now timed out and in normal form tapped me on my gooey shoulder and motioned to move in closer. I nodded and cut out a circle from the fence big enough for him to slip through. There was no way we would be seen from behind the dumpster. And with Ben timed out, we wouldn't be given away by the Omnitrix.

 _Beep beep beep…_

Shit. I forgot about mine.

We were left standing as purple light flashed the alley alerting the stupid Limax that we were here. But I hadn't actually detransformed. I was still Ameliorate, not human. But now my Omnitrix was visible and the core was out twirling in green light.

- _DNA scanned. Limax DNA added to playlist function.-_ After that the core slid back into place and the Omnitrix disappeared once more leaving Ben, Limax!Marty, and me in confusion.

"Galvan scum. How dare you register _MY_ DNA for your studies. You'll pay for that!" his jaw unhinged as he launched toward me.

I was knocked down to the ground but I turned myself into a puddle of goo to avoid any further attacks from L!Marty. I could feel exactly what he was as he stepped on me trying to figure out a way to get to me. His shoes weren't shoes, they felt like a slime moulded into the shape OF shoes. So a Limax didn't really transform, they were more like chameleons, camouflaging into the environment.

"Get out of that form. And fight," he hissed. His hands stopped looking human as they stretched and thinned into a flat surface. He managed to slip them underneath me for a bit before I fought back and flattened myself further squeezing and cutting off part of his hand.

"Ahhhhh!" Ben swung a bat he found in the dumpster at Marty and watched in surprise when the bat stuck to the side of the alien's head.

-Ben, you stupid idiot. Why didn't you stay hidden?!- I wanted to kill the kid so badly. Marty didn't have any leverage on me, physically nor threateningly.

"Well well. What do we have here?" L!Marty's head inverted to the back skipping the exorcist head turn. "The Mechamorph's Earthling guide. Aren't you a little too young to be wandering around on your own, child?" he hissed again as he attacked Ben.

In a blink of an eye, I was wrapped around him trying to prevent his attack. But it was actually very hard. He was more of a liquid than I was. Where I'm living metal, he's more like living water. Ironic considering that he was weak to water. Fuck! He's weak to water, I almost forgot about that.

I pushed against his struggles to free himself from me and frantically looked around for any source of water. Next to the garbage can, I spotted a faucet.

-Ben, turn on the faucet.- Ben glanced over to where I shifted my head to point to and looked back at me as if I was crazy.

"Mia, this isn't the time to drink water. I don't think you can even drink water as Upgrade." He frowned disapprovingly.

-Just do it you Doofus.-

With a snort, he half jogged to the thing and opened it up full blast. I'm pretty sure that L!Marty got the gist of what I wanted to do because his struggling increased along with muffled screams. Parts of his liquid body managed to squeeze out from some places but I just kept stretching my body over those parts. Walking towards the water was harder though. I couldn't exactly move without letting L!Marty out of me. So with each step, I thinned my body more and more causing more of L!Marty to free itself from me, but I compensated by immediately squishing my body together forward.

-Ben, go check what's in the rug Marty was carrying. And drag it away from the water.- The rug was starting to soak up some water that was puddling up around it. A few more struggling steps later, Ben had the rug clear from the water and I was now standing on the puddle of water.

I waited until the puddle was a bit larger and released L!Marty into his own personal torture. I kind of scared myself as I watched him scream and writhe in pain.

It felt good seeing him like that. Pleasure would not have been what I expected when looking at an alien creature die in front of me. As it's body steamed and bubbled everywhere where the water made contact. The organs inside withering and blackening as they fell through the cell-like skin and made a sickening splat against the concrete.

"Mia?" I felt Ben's hand shake my shoulder, but I couldn't hear him clearly over the Limax's screams. "Mia, they're coming. We need to leave." I finally heard Ben's warnings when the scene was over. L!Marty was now just a pile of goo being washed away by the water coming out of the faucet.

"They're coming?" My question sounded a little dazed. And I noticed that it was coming out in the sound of my voice. The Omnitrix must've timed out during the chaotic event.

I let Ben lead me toward the carpet. There, the thing was unfolded and the real Marty's body was in front of us, unconscious. Still didn't know why the Limaxes didn't kill their victims. Maybe they can only eat living things. Or plot force.

"Help me get him onto the golf cart. Maybe we can still…" I didn't get to finish my sentence as a flash of green whisked Marty away.

"The children. Why didn't we listen to him when he suggested to get rid of them before they messed our plans up?" Ben nervously pulled closer to me as 4 Disguised Limaxes appeared in front of us.

I quickly guided Ben toward the puddle that was already taking up most of the Garbage area. They won't be able to get us in here now. The fake men and women pressed as close as they could to the puddle and snarled at us. I wish I could say that I defiantly smirked at them like the suave girl in a fanfiction who could fight anything and anyone, even without powers. But I can't lie.

My legs were shaking and I felt like I could pass out right there. I was completely terrified. The only reason why I enjoyed L!Marty's demise was because of the rush of adrenaline and the invulnerability that came with being in a transformation.

"No luck with my watch, what about you, Mia?" I looked at my Omnitrix Band and tried to find a way to activate it. I was only greeted with a bunch of halfhearted activation noises. The colour had also changed, it went from Purple to being a dark blackish Red. So I shook my head.

We were cornered. Which is why I was startled when Ben suddenly jumped forward and splashed as hard as he could. Drops of water sprayed 2 Limaxes making them flinch and move backward.

"Come on. Please a little bit of help Azmuth?" I pleaded quietly to the Omnitrix while Ben distracted the aliens. "I know you said that you couldn't download any more aliens without alerting Vilgax, but I really need the extra help. Ben and I don't have any water aliens."

I was suddenly on all fours and my sense of smell was increased and sharpened. I opened my mouth to yell in surprise but all that came out was a vicious grr. Before I knew it, the 4 Limax were also running away now.

I raced after them ignoring Ben's matching surprise. " _ **Get bag here you priggs.**_ " I wasn't able to pronounce my ks. I had no clue what alien I turned into. A quadrupedal shark if I remember the quick glimpse of my reflection in the water. It also kind of looked a little ridged and dragon-like.

I opened my mouth to insult the aliens again when a blast of water escaped my mouth. It washed over three of them and quickly disintegrated them. There were no screams of agony or squirming. They were just there one second and gone the next. Like the ray guns from War of the Worlds.

" _ **Thang you Azmuth, I thought you just left me. I never heard from you since you let me be human again,**_ " I laughed in delight.

The last Limax, a thin elderly woman (Actually now that I let myself notice, all of the old people I've seen in this retirement community have been white people. I haven't seen any Asians or even African Americans, but I guess it makes sense since it's 2005.) tried to escape through an alley. I opened my mouth and jettisoned a stream of water wiping it out of existence before it got away though. Accuracy and distance. Nice.

Multiple faces stared out at me from inside the houses. But no one came out and tried to go after me as I went back to Ben. The sky was already dark giving space for the stars and a peaking moon to shine down. If those Limax knew what was good for them, they would stay inside.

"That is Awesome! You unlocked two aliens today!? I didn't know that the watch could scan other aliens. But mine hasn't done anything like that! I wonder why. And…" Ben started going off like a machine gun making observations and bouncing questions off like they were simple bottles of water to be thrown out. I was glad he went quiet when I transformed back into myself. I needed a little silence after all the action that happened.

"So. What are you going to call that alien?" He asked excitedly.

I chuckled lightly, he loved the alien names. "How about Hydrake? Now, let's go tell Max about what happened, I think they're going to be worried that we've been gone all evening."

* * *

It was early morning. We hadn't been able to get to Vera's house on time. Everyone was asleep when we arrived. Even Gwen was sleeping soundly in the guest room we were all sharing. So Ben and I decided to let them rest and tell them everything in the morning when we woke up. There were only two beds in the room though so the four of us had to share. Max and Ben in one bed, Gwen and I had the other.

Sleeping next to Gwen felt nice. Feeling our backs pressed together was comforting. A solid lure to a reality that was no longer mine. And it was much better than sleeping on the top bunk which had a springy mattress that would at times feel like cardboard. I guess that's why she decided to sleep early instead of waiting for us to chide Ben if Max had been worried about our whereabouts. I know how much she desired comfort during the trip.

I woke up swaddled up next to Gwen. I guess we moved a lot during the night and ended up much closer than when we went to sleep. The thought of possibly cuddling in our sleep made my face light up like a Christmas tree. It wouldn't be something I would want to be aware of and I could live better if she didn't find out if it ever did happen.

I looked over to the bed next to us and noticed that both Ben and Max were missing. I woke Gwen up and pointed it out to her.

"Yeah," she yawned. "Ben's probably ready for breakfast and Grandpa sometimes likes to go out for early morning walks. He's done it like twice already."

She and I took the advantage of having no boys in the room to quickly change into our day clothes and walked out into the kitchen where Ben was eating.

"Hi, Mia. Grandpa Max went out for a morning walk. We should go after him, after we eat breakfast of course." He gulped down a mouthful of eggs. Half-eaten pancakes and 2 strips of bacon were on his plate, minus the eggs he just ate.

"Go after him? Why? And where were you both yesterday?" Gwen crossed her arms.

Her serious demeanour changed though when Vera came by with two more plates. For us obviously.

"Now you two eat before you children join your grandfather. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day of course." Then I remembered that she had been a Limax in the show when she dropped the glass of water. I tensed up and looked at her worriedly.

"Miss Vera? Can I get a glass of water first? I'm really thirsty," Ben and Gwen looked at me like I lost my mind.

"Sure child," she smiled happily and left for a couple of seconds. "Here you go, you precious thing," she bent over to pinch my cheeks with enthusiasm. I took the opportunity to "accidentally" drop the water making it look like I was taken by surprise.

"Oh dear, you should really be careful with that. You kids go eat your breakfast while I clean this up."

Okay. So for some reason, the Limax didn't come during the night to replace Aunt Vera. Now that I felt comfortable being in the same room as Vera, I motioned to Ben to eat with me. As we ate, the two of us explained what was happening to Gwen. Vera seemed uninterested cleaning up my mess.

"We need to go rescue Grandpa," Gwen said. I nodded and motioned to my empty plate.

"That's what we were going to do before we were stopped to eat breakfast. Even though there are holes in the whole 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day' since all the tests done have been by cereal companies at this point."

The three of us ran outside.

"Where are you kids going?" Vera called.

"Just going out to save Max from a group of aliens that want to eat old people like him!" I explained.

"Well be careful then," she advised cheerily. I still couldn't tell if she actually knew about the whole alien business or not.

Every single house was deserted. After transforming into XLR8 and Burnout respectively, we checked every single one to find a Limax to beat its information out of them. But everything was deserted.

"Where is everyone?" XLR8 rasped.

I shrugged. "Maybe they all left?" Gwen offered.

"No it's never that easy," Ben and I said at the same time.

* * *

A Limax disguised as Max Tennyson approached two other of his kind in a dark alley far from the trio of kids. They were the only two left on the surface trying to make sure that everything that they had gotten into their hands wouldn't get left behind.

"The appearance of that Galvanic Mechamorph ruined everything," The old thin woman hissed.

"What is one of them even doing all the way out in this spiral of the galaxy? The Galvan pride themselves in being passive creatures of the universe. Is that just bullshit they spew out to the galaxy?" L!Max cried.

"Calm yourselves both of you. All we need to do is go back to the mother ship and get out of here. We have enough nutrition to last us a few months. Once we get out of this System, we'll be in the clear. So do not ruin this," The last one glared.

"What of the children?" L!Max worried.

"What of them? Leave them, they aren't worth the trouble, the boy and brown girl were able to make quick work of Yunil," the woman shuddered as she tried to imagine the horrible fate that was L!Marty's demise. "Not to mention that they're too far from being ripe."

"Then it is agreed that we leave now?" Their leader asked. The other two Limax nodded and the three were off to their escape.

* * *

"Are you guys sure that this is the way to their ship?" Gwen asked with disgust looking down into the sewer-like tunnel. She gently pinched her nose as a wisp of the odour found its way into her nose.

"Yeah, alien Marty came to the dumpster yesterday with the body of real Marty, he was still breathing, of course. We didn't know why he came here since he heard us before he could do what he wanted to do. Now we come here and Wildmutt finds a trapdoor leading to an underground tunnel right next to where the carpet was set down, what else would this be for?" Mia explained.

Unknowing to them, the three Limax from earlier were looking in on them, far away enough for Wildmutt to be unable to sense them. He used smell, he couldn't magically echolocate them.

Gwen still looked a bit troubled and unconvinced by the explanation. It was obvious that she didn't want to jump in. But her cousin was starting to get impatient and growled at her to make up her mind. But after more hesitation from her, he jumped in himself leaving the girls behind.

"On 3?" Mia sympathetically offered her hand.

The redhead looked up at her and managed to form a small thankful smile. She took the other girl's hand and breathed in deeply trying to calm her nerves. Dealing with all this alien stuff was still too much for her. She didn't want to admit that, especially not in front of her doofus cousin, but with another girl in the group, she at least felt a little more comfortable.

"1...2...3." And the two girls jumped in after Ben. They landed making sure to absorb all the shock to their legs and booked it after Ben.

They weren't able to get far though as they ended up getting stumped on several entrances. And they were running out of time, the noise of the alien trio was nearing.

"Ben? Maybe something that can sniff out the victims would be good?" Mia hinted. But she gives the boy too much credit. He is definitely dumber than a brick.

"Yeah, maybe Four Arms can knock a cold into those guys." Ben slammed the face down before anyone could say anything in effort to correct Mia's vague plea. "Fourarms! Let's knock some slime heads," the big red alien bellowed.

"Hey, Genius. Mia meant Wildmutt, not Fourarms. How are you going to sniff out where Grandpa is with him?" Gwen chided.

"Let's worry about the details later," Ben said as the three Limax came into view. "M-mia how about you, uh. Give us some, some err, some refreshing help?" Ben stumbled on his words as he saw the alien disguised as his grandfather.

"Ben. Listen to me, he isn't Grandpa Max. Don't hold back against him," Gwen ordered. Hopefully, he wouldn't fall for the disguise again like in the show Mia thought. But she wouldn't find out if he would as the elderly woman Limax tackled her into one of the tunnel entrances.

"Ben! Mia!" Gwen's screams echoed through the caves. Judging by her screams, the Limax had successfully separated the 3 young heroes.

Now that Mia was knocked further into the darkness, there was no light to aid her sight. She was now blindly trying to pick herself up and gather her bearings. She couldn't remember if the goo aliens were able to see without light or if they depended on it like her. Damn her human memory. A lot of stuff was slipping from her mind already and it hadn't even been a week yet. But right now it seemed to be safe for her. She could hear the soft scuffling of feet around her so maybe they weren't able to see without light. Or it was toying with her.

Mia knew that she needed to transform. Right now or something bad could happen. But she couldn't she was frozen in fear. She was on the verge of tears wanting nothing more than to go back home. A home she would never see again if she was killed right now. So with great difficulty, she quickly brought up and slammed down the dial of her Omnitrix.

Her feelings of weakness vanished as her skin hardened and everything inside her vanished into liquid metal.

— _You asshole! You're dog shit.—_ anger boiled through Ameliorate's metallic blood and she unleashed a powerful laser from her eye. The darkness of the cave was chased away as the energy blast hit the cave wall and radiated it with a purple glow.

The blast had barely missed the alien. It was uncomfortably close enough to make her contort herself to avoid the blast though. A very good aim considering the previous level of light inside the cave chamber.

— _Now that I can see you, you're going to wish you never came to this planet._ — the Limax barred her teeth at the girl's threat.

The Old Lady's arm reverted to the real appearance of a Limax's and turned into the shape of a curved blade. She ran towards Ameliorate and sliced through one of the metal arms distracting the concentration of another blast. Ameliorate let out a static scream of surprise before commanding the detached Mechamorph limb to liquidate and return to its owner.

The Limax swung several more times forcing Ameliorate to back up and take on a defensive approach to the assault. There wasn't any opening for her to retaliate. And each swing dodged affected her concentration to form an energy blast. _Maybe if I could transfer my head to another part of my body like when I was possessing technology, I would be able to allow the top part of me to be damaged while I charged up…_

Ameliorate faltered in her steps thanks to a couple of stones in her way allowing for another clean swing to her torso this time. She fell into a pool of metal and slithered up over the alien covering it and scrunching it up as tight as she could.

There was a lot of struggle as the Limax tried desperately to stretch itself out of the increasingly cramping space, but it was in vain. Ameliorate had finally figured out how to harden its skin to prevent escape.

"Please, let me out!" She ignored the pleas of the Limax.

Using the energy charge up ability, she began to heat herself up inciting a laugh from the alien trapped inside.

"You think you can destroy me with a little bit of heat? I'm a Limax you Galvanic scum. We chose to invade the desert because we're creatures that thrive in heat," it gloated.

In response, Ameliorate shrank even more until she couldn't go further due to the amount of the Limax's self. The amount of its goo and what looked like organs floating inside of its mess. Ameliorate also heated even further singing the rocks underneath it and bursting parts of it into flames. The heat allowed it to collapse even more. Then it unfurled itself and stepped away from a heavy ball of cooked compact slime that was the size of a keychain. The alien was dead. Another cruel act to originate from Mia.

She stepped back, the fear and emotional turmoil that she was feeling inside weren't visible on the alien form she was in. She quickly ran through the tunnels seeping through all the cracks in each dead-end she stumbled on until she was able to come out into the cavern housing the spaceship. Fourarms and Gwen were already inside there fighting of the amalgamation of all the Limaxes.

Fourarms was having a lot of trouble fighting the giant while Gwen tried her best to empty out all of the cocoons that were inside the ship. Grandpa Max was out of his but he was dazed and useless on the floor. Fourarms was fighting off the thing giving Gwen her time by seismic clapping parts of the Limax away and throwing boulders every time it tried to go after his cousin.

— _Ben!_ — I called out. — _Remember that it's weak to water!_ —

"And where am I going to find water in here?" He grunted catching a chunky fist of Limax.

— _We're underground. Look for Pipes, I'll help Gwen out._ —

I ran up to the ship and pressed my hands against the hull. Concentrating, I spread myself into the metal encompassing every aspect of the ship. I activated the engines, closed every room, set a course for deep space, then I modified the incubation part of the ship to treadmill everything off.

As I did my part, I also kept an eye on the fight outside.

Ben wasn't having any luck fighting the Limax. He already noticed the water pipes on the ceiling but it also saw them. So each boulder thrown up was caught and bounced back shattering upon contact with the ground every time FourArms dodged them.

Why can't he seem to defeat any of the villains we've met? Even when I give him help and advice, he can't do it. It's so frustrating.

— _Ben, the…_ —

"The pipes I know. I'm trying my best. Why don't you help instead of nagging?" Ben dodged another boulder rebound.

So with great annoyance, I activated the ship's weapons and incinerated the roof above us. Water gushed through the melted metal washing through the cavern.

Their screams pierced the coldness of the caves before they melted into puddles of green. And I cleaned up the mess by forming a vacuum to suck it into the ship. And after fiddling with the engines, they roared to life.

All of the egg things were finally outside. Safe and sound. And now I'm finally able to come off the ship next to a now Human Ben Tennyson, his cousin, and their unconscious Grandpa.

"We did it!" Gwen cheered as Ben slung his arms around us getting us wet. Or at least he did it to Gwen and _tried_ to do it to me since I'm still Ameliorate.

"I wonder why you get to stay alien much longer than me," Ben glared.

"What's going on?" Max groaned.

"Grandpa!" They both rushed to his side and Gwen continued, "It's a good thing you're waking up. We're gonna need all the help we can get to get all the elderly to their houses."

— _Actually_ — I interrupted.

"If you give us a few minutes I think XLR8 and Backspin can get this done quicker."

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful, aside from the fact that Ben and I had been blurs of blue and purple all around the retirement community.

"I'm sorry, Ben, that it wasn't as interesting as you would've hoped. But there really isn't much excitement here in this place. But it was great seeing you and your cousin again," Aunt Vera apologized cheerily.

On cue, Ben reassured her that it was a fine day. "Don't worry Aunt Vera. It was actually pretty fun being here." Then he jumped onto the Rustbucket next to me and we watched the exchange between her and Gwen.

"You're, ugh!" she grunted holding the chunky gelatin in her hands. And with a quick wave, we were off on another alien adventure.


	5. Tag Teamed by a Robot

**Or the day that Mia teamed up with the Solar System and a Lightbulb.**

* * *

So before we get started, I just wanted to thank all of you who take your time to read and enjoy what I have to offer this community. I'll also be answering whatever comments are made in person and on each following chapter.

dperson3569- I kind of did. The Omniverse show had so many redesigns trying to make most of the aliens seem alien. Not just humanoid monster creatures. Plus I wanted to even the playing field between XLR8 and my favourite speedster alien.

XenoLucifer- Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the story. As for Backspin's name. I couldn't really decide between the two of them because the names just sound so awesome. It's also very hard for me to remember what I keep calling them so I have to keep going to my notes where I wrote down the official names for all the aliens. As for Mia's timeouts, I guess you could say that it's because it's a duplicate of the original, but I'm saving the real reason for a later plot point. And just you wait to see how Ben feels when she discovers a special function after meeting Kevin.

* * *

My Conductoid transformation was different from the show. But I might chalk this up to gender differences or maybe as one of the many changing things in this weird parallel universe.

Instead of two plug extensions coming out of my head like feedback, I had 5 coming out making me look like an odd mix of the greek Cyclops and Medusa. But I was lacking a tail plug. I guess that evened things out somehow.

Something I couldn't remember was how many fingers feedback had because I was thinking, no I was feeling that my four plug fingers were looking a little weird. The one thing that filled me with relief though was the fact that I didn't have a voluptuous form or a big bust that animators always gave their female aliens. We don't need human characteristics on them to know that they're alien versions of women. Just give them different abilities or something.

" _Hey, Omnitrix, what are female Conductoids like?_ " I jokingly asked as if I was talking to Siri.

—Female Conductoids, like the rest of the species, are solitary creatures. They hold a positive charge that can drain the energy from most machines more efficiently than their male counterparts. The Males of the species differ in the way that they are more effective in disrupting their power causing damage. Conductoids also mate for life, choosing a partner who matches their charge before going back to solitary lifestyles until they need to mate once more. The young are fed through the extensions on the female's head plugging into openings only present in the early stages of life until they close off.—

" _Neat. My own alien encyclopedia. I doubt I'll ever need or use it again though. So male conductoids are like dead beat fathers. Not that I blame them._ " It was true though, every time a new feature or power is shown to a protagonist like this, they usually forget about it and it never comes up again. Especially since the most important place to use this would be in battle, where you're too busy trying not to have your ass be cut off to remember trivial shit.

Back to the subject of Feedback, I now knew why 11-year-old Ben loved the alien so much. Siphon, as I called mine, was a huge power craze. I was strong and lean. I could absorb electricity for a power boost and then release it as electricity coated in some plasma substance to keep it together. Not to mention that the electricity tasted so good to my alien brain. It always left me wanting more.

My sense of smell was equally amazing. I didn't have a nose so I could no longer smell normal food. But the radio waves that were constantly zipping around in the air were something that I could smell. By its scent, I could tell what kind of information they were carrying. And by reaching my plugs out, I could taste the information and experience it all.

Directing my plugs to the north and reaching for a medium strength radio wave gave me funny cat videos from Youtooze. Snagging the stronger signal pulled up some problematic fetish video that was being streamed in 4k. I let go of it with a shudder, I barely caught a glimpse of a few seconds and I already felt the need to throw up. To clean my mouth from that taste I moved to the stray radio signals coming from the south. We were so close to the border in the middle of nowhere of Arizona and those radio waves were from the foreign side. It was a Spanish dubbed version of Sumo Slammers reruns accompanied by a Korean live-action ripoff. To sum everything up, I had free cable without a tv.

A taste of an old favourite caused an idea to form in my head. I jumped over to a junked car and easily ripped off its front hood.

" _I don't know how Virgil does it, but thanks to cartoon physics I can do this,_ " I zapped the hood causing a magnetizing force to develop and with my powers, I was now floating in the air with it zipping about in excitement. " _This is wicked!_ " I successfully became Static Shock.

I slowed down the speed I was travelling at and started to calmly hover through the garbage dump looking for things to use as target practice. An unlucky car I spotted had the misfortune of getting a glop of plasma shot at it causing the metal parts touching it to heat up and melt while the rest of its body burned black and released a nasty smell into the air from the resulting electricity spreading itself.

What I discovered was that I couldn't not only could I just unleash an arc of lightning into the air. I could also release a liquid form of it that caused what I just did. I was finally letting go of my fear of getting trapped in a transformation and letting myself feel the wonder and excitement of using the best piece of technology ever thought of by superhero creators. I could just scream in delight. I had so much energy and I didn't know what to do with it.

I shot an arc of lightning towards a refrigerator, this time it was to magnetize it instead of destroying it. I fought against the rejecting strength of its aura and moved as close as I could to it and then stopped fighting it to launch me towards a pile of garbage. I flew up it like a ramp and did a front flip before returning to the ground stripping the hood from its charge to slid down the pile in a triumphant pose.

The thrill of the actions brought me to the magnetized fridge again. This time I didn't have to fight against the repelling charges until I magnetized the hood once I was close enough. It launched me into the air and I used as much power as I had to keep travelling upward.

My giddiness died out when I felt the magnetic pull of one of Vilgax's drones. It noticed that I knew it was there and it tried to flee. I couldn't let it get away. It might've already sent all the information it had to the ship, but maybe it couldn't unless it went to it in person. Regardless, I jumped off the hood and zapped

" _You're fucked you piece of scrap!_ " I thundered.

I watched as it was sliced in half but while the bottom of it fell to the ground and exploded, the top kept trying to fly into the air. I angrily released a bunch of electricity to jettison me toward it. Once I reached it, I connected all of my plugs and sucked the thing dry.

For a moment I was floating in a white void filled with red blobs — like being inside of a lava lamp — and Vilgax towered over me. Except that he wasn't the torn-up mess with bionic replacements that I fought the day Ben and I got our very distinct copies of the Omnitrix. Instead, he was the complete version with splotches of brownish-green, sharp threatening teeth and channels of lava red liquid that snaked around his body that threatened to jump on me and strangle me.

I fell out of the vision startled lying on the floor and my transformation reverted. The drone must've messed with my Omnitrix. No, that's impossible, it's in camouflage mode. Nothing, especially not Vilgax, can detect or control my Omnitrix. It had to be something else. Something that was causing my watch to act strange.

I looked at the sweatband that was my watch. There had to be something wrong with it that could explain the recent malfunction I had during the night.

* * *

"So what exactly are we doing here?" I popped in by the Rustbucket right as Grandpa Max returned from his trip into the town's main building. I wouldn't call it city hall though since it was mostly a tourist attraction — surprising since we're in the desert — that didn't even have a security team.

What was shown in the Tourist Trapped episode didn't do it justice. The show made the town look like an abandoned town with slow business. Only a few background characters being thrown in to make it feel somewhat real. But it was actually pretty lively. The poor owner/mayor must be overworked. It was like half the visitors in a Knott's Berry Farm.

Of course, like always I had no clue what was going to be happening today. It should at least have something to do with the Nosedeenians. But the Vilgax drone I just destroyed threw me off my game.

It was obvious that Vilgax wouldn't wait around for us to defeat a certain amount of bad guys before attacking or even scouting us. He's a bad guy and he won't have any respect when it comes to taking the Omnitrix for himself. But that realism was terrifying because nothing was scheduled anymore. I can't stress enough how terrified I was of Vilgax.

I know I beat him. But he was already severely injured and impatient. Facing a calm and partially healed Vilgax would be worse at this stage.

"Mia," Gwen's voice startled me. "Are you okay? You looked a little… distant." I found myself caught in a moment of weakness.

Tears were welling up in my eyes and my hands shook. Only Gwen was here to view the collapse in my serene mask I put around them because Ben and Grandpa Max were heading off to the hotel. I clenched my teeth as I let out the sobs and collapsed onto her shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Gwen asked in confusion.

I couldn't stop and talk clearly but somehow she understood my messy words in between sniffles. "I'm scared, Gwen. I'm not ready to be a hero or fight aliens. I'm not like Ben who's either very brave or stupid."

"Oh, Mia." I felt comfort as Gwen held me tight. It was a little strengthening. Sharing my fear felt like a relief too.

A knot formed in my throat causing discomfort as I spoke, "I'm sorry for dumping this on you. It's just… I felt…"

"I'm here for you, Mia. You won't be alone. We will help you.

"Thank you, Gwen."

She held me for a couple of minutes waiting for my breathing to calm down. It felt nice. Her warmth helped stop my body from shivering. It was hard to believe that she was a year younger than me. When you're kids, a year can be a huge age gap, especially in a height difference. And we were the same size.

Breathing out a huge sigh, I untangled myself and started to wipe my face from all the tears that streaked down. I was still a little shaken and no longer having someone to hold me was allowing the shaking to return, but they were softer.

"Hold on. Let me help," Gwen dashed into the Rustbucket and came out with a moist paper towel.

She carefully dabbed my face with it making sure to clean me up as best as she could. I just stood there only turning my face when she softly moved my head and I focused on controlling my breathing. It was the only method I knew to make me calm.

"There," she smiled and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear, "You look better."

"Thank you," I repeated in a whisper.

"So what exactly happened? What made you freak out? You were perfectly fine when we woke up this morning," she asked.

"I was — fighting one of Vilgax's drones before I came back. He's still after Ben, but instead of tracking Ben, it was tracking me. I had to fight that thing by myself, Gwen. And it was fun at the moment. But after the rush of being an alien vanished, I became fucking terrified." Gwen looked at me with worry, I don't think she knew what to say in response to that but she tried her best to comfort me by holding my hands.

"Ben, he likes you, y' know. He would do anything to protect you," she finally broke the silence.

"I know. But I think I might like someone else. I don't know for sure though. My feelings, they're, err, confusing," I admitted. I didn't know what I was feeling. My stomach would twist and feel like it's being pulled when I see her. And I always want to look at her. I think I'd look at her all day if I could.

"Well, whoever he is better watch out for Ben. He might go FourArms on him. Come on let's go. Grandpa might be waiting for us to check out the room we'll be in," she chuckled. My hand was left reaching out missing her touch as she ran toward the town entrance.

I struggled to keep myself together for the rest of the evening. Gwen kept shooting worried glances at me and I kept my fingers crossed that she wouldn't tell Max nor Ben about my breakdown. I wanted to keep this between us, a girl secret.

The room was small and very strange. Only two beds were hanging from the wall. All the furniture was also nailed to the wall. I guess the room was designed to appear as if it was sideways. So the width was what it should have been if the room was normal. And the windows were styled to look like skylights but on the wall.

Again like last time, we were separated to sleep in the beds by Gender. Ben and Max would take one bed and Gwen and I would take the other one. With that settled we went to eat a late dinner in the only buffet in the town.

"I'm glad that at least one of you kids has enough of a good taste," Max rasped in amusement. He was talking about my choice in food that I gathered. He and I were the only ones to get seafood. Meanwhile, Ben and Gwen shared a look of disgust and cradling some pizza, roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and a cob of corn.

I had shrimp, octopus, crab and lobster meat, and two fish eyes. I just shrugged at them. These things actually taste good. My parents — from the real world — were the ones who taught me to eat anything that came my way and enjoy them.

"What can I say? This stuff is pretty good," I replied by popping one of the eyes into my mouth and enjoying the creamy saltiness of it. The other one I smashed into the rest of the food to add some salty taste.

With Gwen eating next to me and Ben cracking jokes and being his normal buffoon self, I felt great. And the shock from earlier was gone.

* * *

 ** _Vilgax's Ship_**

Robot minions were going about their work. They made sure to inspect the floors and rooms to make sure they were clean. They monitored the screens keeping track of the drones that were dispatched to earth. It wasn't easy though since every once in a while they were destroyed. They even had to maintain the regeneration tank that kept their master alive.

This was all done in silence. They weren't required to talk to each other. And they certainly didn't require any kind of nourishment. So the entire ship was silent.

It was the life that Vilgax lived as a Chimeran dictator and former exile — debatable in his current state. He didn't have any organic contact outside of contracted mercenaries some of which don't even talk.

Most of his time floating was spent asleep. His waking moments were filled with thoughts and plans about what he would do once the Omnitrix returned to his possession. He just had to wait. Wait until he was completely whole. He already tried and failed to fight the new wielder and his Petro Guardian with cybernetic replacements.

Cyber-replacements weren't reliable. And if he has his whole body back he would be able to use his powers freely.

It should only take a few more days before he could go himself. Maybe a week or two tops. He itched to go retrieve it himself.

The androids looked over to the tank expectantly as their master twitched in his sleep. They finished construction on another Droid and needed to wake him to tell him.

One of them moved in close and tapped on the tank. Bubbles floated as Vilgax slowly opened his eyes. His head was fully healed. The fight he had ended up blowing a chunk of it right off.

" _What is it? Speak._ " His order was weak.

—The Droid is ready. Should we launch to the Omnitrix's location?—

" _Yes. But first, contact the mercenary._ "

Two Androids typed away on the consoles and brought up the communications to Rax. They were neutral to Vilgax's stares.

Rax stared into the room still silent and unwilling to speak.

" _Bounty Hunter._ " He wheezed. " _You are near the wielder?_ "

Rax nodded and pointed his communicator to the background. It was a small town with a water Dam in the background.

" _Good. I'm sending a droid to help you fight. I expect positive results. But should you lose, I will be prepared for that failure as well._ "

This surprised Rax. Was the Conqueror losing his edge? He heard a lot about his rage upon failure. No, this exchange only made him even more paranoid. Vilgax had something planned if he failed.

A sudden explosion of yellow energy in the town caught his attention. Something told him that he would be having some extra help in wearing out the wielder. Now if he could tear the Omnitrix before Vilgax's help came he might be able to score points with his former employer.

* * *

 ** _Mia_**

I woke up underneath Gwen. Last night I managed to sleep on the bottom. She and I argued over who would take the bottom and we had to decide over rock paper scissors.

"Hey, Gwen. You awake?" I poked her.

She squirmed and yawned, "I am now. This is why you should've slept on top."

"Social awkwardness states that the other person needs to be more comfortable than me," I retorted. That earned a chuckle from her though.

Soon, we were all awake and ready to go. Max was playing up the _Thing_ and I was trying to make them seem like it was boring to keep them away. It was a game of ping pong between us.

"Don't be ridiculous, Mia," Max chuckled. "This _Thing_ is very interesting and I think you, kids could enjoy it. I should know, I saw it when I was younger and it was really something to look at."

If he's seen it before that must mean he was responsible for capturing the Megawatt inside something more that changed. But then why was he insisting on us going? I'm trying to stop it from escaping. Ugh, doesn't he know how careless his grandson is?

Our argument cut off because it became useless the moment we stepped out of the motel room. Immediately our attention turned to Ben and we glared at him.

"This wasn't me," he swore.

"What did you do?" Gwen demanded. I crossed my arms waiting for his excuse.

The entire town was in ruins. Only the motels where people slept in were left partially together. There was a stop sign hanging by telephone wires above us just creaking and groaning. Glass shards were all over the floor forcing people to walk around with great caution. And the signs had their letters rearranged to make misspelled words like ' _Yu sMell_ ' ' _pOop hed_ ' and ' _taG ur It_ '.

"You snuck out last night didn't you," I glared at Ben.

"Well, uh, yeah. But, I — didn't do this," he flustered.

"Kid's right you know," the hillbilly manager walked over to us. "This is the work of something more sinister. You should know it already, Tennyson," he emotionlessly glanced at Max, "I took the liberty of calling it a Megawatt after all these years. Hope you don't mind."

"Grandpa, what's he talking about?" Gwen raised an eyebrow.

"I helped out here when I was hired for the plumbing in the town. And I kinda helped capture this thing." I wonder how much longer he could keep the existence of the Plumbers covered up.

— _Unknown alíen DNA detected._ — My voice came out again from the Omnitrix when the core popped up.

Yellow electricity zapped past and the Omnitrix flashed its purple light. — _Nosedeenian DNA registered. Playlist 1 is full of 7 alien transformations. Standby for the creation of a 2nd playlist._ — Full with 7? Instead of 10? Yet another new thing I don't understand from my watch.

"Another one?" Ben exclaimed. Poor boy, I chuckled.

— _Nosedeenians are known for their dangerous humour. Their love for practical jokes outweighs their sense of right and wrong. Though that information only stands true for some intergalactic explorers of their species._ —

"I could have easily told you that. You don't need that fancy watch when you already purchased a tour guide who is yours truly. Megawatts, they have a dangerous sense of humour." An electrified manhole cover flew by at a high speed to prove his point. The Megawatt laughed in amusement because Ben and Max threw themselves to the floor.

"And why is it here?" I decided to throw the obvious question no one was asking even though I already knew why.

"Well, because someone didn't mind the signs while he was sneaking around last night. So now, it's your problem to deal with," the mayor shot Ben a stink eye and pulled out a hat and snagged a bag of popcorn uncaring about the explosion that sent people running for the exits. "Well, I just lost those customers for a while."

At least now the reason why he's leaving Max and the rest of us to capture the Megawatt made sense. Max helped capture it last time! Your secrets are finding no place to hide.

"And how are we supposed to do that without any tools?" Agh! I want to smack the truth out of the old man. Why is he trying so hard to keep his former life a secret when we're dealing with aliens!? It just makes no sense.

"We don't need any tools when we have, Fourarms!" Ben dialled up the transformation and slammed the dial down.

I guess it was also time for me to use Feedback in front of them for the first time. Why change such a good name too? I'll keep Feedback's name. Besides, Siphon was giving me major Vilgax vibes. I activated the core and turned the dial until I got the proper silhouette and tried to push it down. Tried is the keyword. The damn thing got stuck and refused to budge.

— _Upgrade?_ —

Ben was having a problem of his own too, he hadn't gotten the alien he asked for. But maybe he just didn't look at the dial when he slammed the thing down. He has a habit of doing that.

— _Mia? I'm going to need some help?_ — he pleaded.

"Uh, that's going to be a problem when my band is having a moment of malfunction," I explained.

Another manhole cover was launched at us. It cut through Upgrade causing it to slow down enough for me to react and drop over Gwen to save us both from any injuries.

— _Hey! That's my cousin and girlfriend!_ — Ben cried out and unleashed a surprising laser from his eye.

"Not your girlfriend!" I corrected. I was surprised by Ben's boldness. Not many guys are brave enough to call that with someone they aren't a thing with.

But I don't think Ben heard me as he ran off in search of the Megawatt.

"Thanks for the save."

"No problem. Just doing my job," I said out of breath and collapsed by her side. Being a hero is exhausting. Just fights every day. If it isn't against aliens then it's with everyday criminals.

Max has snuck off somewhere and left us here alone to think. Maybe trying to figure out how to recapture the Nosedeenian?

I took the opportunity to figure out what was wrong with the Omnitrix. It was sparking and the core was spinning wildly. Great. Busted Omnitrix. I had no clue how this thing was duplicated and why it seemed to be break all the time. And with Azmuth ignoring me, I wouldn't be able to figure it out.

"Any luck?" Gwen asked.

I shook my head. The watch or band has a mind of its own. Literally in my case, and it wanted to make my life difficult.

"Let me try."

"Knock yourself out." I stretched out my hand only to bring it back close when Upgrade came flying over our heads.

2 branches of electricity zoomed by briefly forming into Nosedeenians to laugh and left.

"They duplicated?!" Gwen exclaimed.

— _Yeah. I just launched a piece of metal at them and they split in two._ —

My Omnitrix finally decided it was time to stop bugging out and returned to its normal state. I quickly ran through the silhouettes, this time without dialling up the core, and settled on Feedback's form.

Like Ben though, I ended up mistransforming. " ** _Hydrage?_** **_What's wrong with you?_** " I roared in the air. I was the shark-like wingless dragon now without the symbol.

* * *

 ** _Vilgax's Ship_**

Vilgax watched with great interest at the sudden development his mercenary informed him of. Pesky Nosedeenians appeared out of nowhere and were doing a good job at wearing out the wielder.

Not only was this great entertainment, but he managed to learn something new. There was an Osmosian in the group. A shape-shifting pup with a control device for the DNA. Surely inspired by the Omnitrix.

That meant that the PetroPest that tore him to shreds wasn't an actual Petrosapien. And the Galvan guarding the device that Rax saw wasn't real either.

From his view, the device worked perfectly and imitated the original Omnitrix well. A Galvan must have recruited the Pup and fashioned a DNA filter for her in retaliation for Vilgax's quest as a conqueror and true master of the original device.

This was giving him an idea. He just had to connect to her. He beckoned one of his servants to give out an order.

" _I need you to load something onto the Droid._ "

* * *

 ** _Mia_**

I unleashed another blast of water at the alien I was fighting. Let me say something wise. Never fight electricity with water. It turns out to be shockingly painful when you do. Yeah, I'm such a genius to figure it out. Thank you. But when you're in the middle of a fight you forget everything and just power through hoping for the best.

Gwen was with me trying to help fight it. But she couldn't do much against something that could become living energy whenever it wants to.

Hydrake was also a lose-lose situation for both of us. The Megawatt was able to electrify me, but it also hurt itself in the process by shorting out inside the liquid. And I wasn't able to get out of this useless transformation because I couldn't concentrate on reverting.

With the Omnitrix in Chameleon mode, I didn't have a way to do the quick change that Alien Force featured a lot. And the only way to change back was if I didn't need to be transformed anymore which I did need.

Megawatt zapped me again. The little twerp. Annoyance and anger controlled me, forced me to chase it down. I didn't need to worry about slipping on water, my skin made sure to prevent that but I did end up tripping on some rubble sending me crashing down to the floor. Dirt and rock piled up in front of my face as I slid a couple of feet.

I guess that was enough to break my need for a fight because I turned back into a human leaving me to dig out the dirt from my nails. I exhaled. Good thing that my Omnitrix didn't have a cooldown for transformations anymore. Now I could choose the right alien this time.

I swiped to Feedback and this time I successfully transformed into her. " _Finally. Now I can really kick some shocking butts._ "

The Megawatt's face fell when it saw what I was now. And it tried to fly away when I began to drain the energy it had been stealing from the town.

My smile of triumph fell when I and the alien were hit with a barrage of crystals. They broke and bounced off onto the ground. Alien Skin is thick to deflect cuts and bruises. But the Megawatt was ripped to shreds and suddenly there were dozen more electric aliens buzzing to find hiding places.

" _Tetrax,_ " I turned to glare daggers into the bounty hunter. " _Didn't Kraab and SixSix take you into custody? What did you do to them?_ "

Tetrax stood stoically continuing to stick to his 'vow of silence.' I glowered and blasted energy at the man. Tetrax was able to throw himself down and roll out of the way to dodge my attack. But I put the juice on and continued. My continuous blast scorched the ground as I guided it after Tetrax.

He was too fast for me to hit. Crystal paths grew in front of him boosting his speed before being destroyed by my attacks. He raised a hand, palm facing me, but I was too distracted to realize what he was going to do.

Crystal shards flew at me and hit my face breaking the energy blast I had chasing him. I fell to the ground dazed and unable to react as Tetrax came up to me.

" _What are you going to do now?_ " I looked up at him worried.

"Get away from her you piece of Zircon!" Gwen's scream turned his head just in time to see her foot race to his face and connect. I stared my mouth agape at her bravery.

She managed to not only get the drop on an alien bounty hunter/mercenary (perhaps), but she also knocked him off his feet and sliding a good distance away.

" _That's a good kick you have,_ " I complimented and stood up.

"Thanks," she gave me a huge smile. "I'm not as good at taekwondo as I am in Karate, but I'm decent."

We stood at attention as Tetrax picked himself up. Our expressions hardened and I defensively moved in front of Gwen. If he opened fire again, I would be able to survive any of the attacks he had. A small kid most probably wouldn't.

I reared my arm back and charged up some plasm in my fingers and then launched them at Tetrax. He raised his arm and created a crystal shield to block the attacks. But he didn't seem to know that that wasn't the attack itself because he didn't try to get rid of those globules stuck to the shield before they detonated and sent him crashing into a building.

"Is that new?" Gwen was the only one who showed any interest in training and having me gain more experience with these different transformations of mine, so she was able to tell I've never done that before.

" _Yeah. Discovered it this morning with Vilgax's drone._ " My heart wasn't in my explanation to her, it was preoccupied with why Tetrax was finally showing his Petrosapien powers. He didn't bother using them in our last fight and was focusing only on his weapons and hoverboard. Now he was leaving them untouched hanging from his belt while the board was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe he was desperate to get to Ben. If that was the case then that one crazy saying would definitely apply to him. "Beware the injured snake."

Gwen shrieked as the ground beneath us began to tremble. Tetrax was still on the ground but he was kneeling now and frozen. I quickly gathered Gwen into my arms as soon as I figured out what was going on and jumped onto the power lines just in time. A massive shard of crystal erupted from the ground with a sharp point pushing past the space we were standing in a few seconds ago.

Deciding not to give Tetrax another chance at turning us into shish kabobs, I streaked down the power lines at fast speeds and dropped near the ongoing Megawatt fight where I let go of Gwen and fell to the floor as a human once more.

"Piece of Zircon? Really?" I looked up at Gwen and heaved an exhausted laugh.

"Well, he's shooting out diamond things. And Zircon's are usually given out as fake diamonds," she defended herself. But I couldn't take her seriously with the adorable pout she was giving me. It resulted in me bursting in more laughter much to her chagrin.

An explosion rocked us as Max and Ben came running around the corner. They had wild eyes with identical looks of fright. Ben's watch was in the red signalling that they were defenceless against the small aliens.

"We need back up, Mia," Ben wheezed once they were next to us. "I'm out of the game for now," He pointed to the red face of the Omnitrix.

"Those Megawatts are a handful. But thankfully the Mayor evacuated everyone to the nearest highway," Max informed us.

So we were cornered from both sides. While Gwen filled them in on what happened with us, I plotted about how we would get out of this mess. On one, side an indestructible alien mercenary was after us and surely making his way toward the Omnitrix, and on the other, there was a swarm of electrical aliens that wanted nothing other than to have fun at the cost of anything in their way.

Come to think of it, it wasn't that bad of a problem. Those Megawatts should be easy to deal with now that I had Feedback on speed dial. So as long as we could keep Tetrax distracted, we could quickly subdue the pests first.

"So that swarm of Megawatt's that ambushed us were caused by that alien hitman?" Ben exclaimed. "We're so doomed."

"No, we're not. I have an alien that can take care of them in a couple of seconds," I assured him confidently.

The sound of wood breaking and splintering accompanied by heavy footsteps emanated from both ends of the street we were hiding in. I groaned as I saw that the ones responsible for the noises were Tetrax and a glowing lightbulb with metal poles for hands and legs. The bounty hunter slammed his hands into the ground and produced a wall of crystal when the lightbulb shot a ray heat that blackened and bounced off the wall. It essentially trapped us in with the mechanical giant.

"I don't think Ben mentioned that those aliens possessed a giant robot, right?" Max observed.

"No problem, we can deal with that," I said, still believing that we could win this. "It can't get any worse than a building-sized death ray."

I challenged the universe and it heard me. No one can challenge it without pissing it off. I should've known from years of watching cartoons. But like always, someone has to do that to make things worse.

From the sky fell another one of those giant robots Vilgax sent to attack us. It crashed into the town hall and immediately began to unfurl into its ominous Kraab form.

"Fuck me," I cursed.

"Language, Mia." I can't believe that Max was more interested in my foul mouth than the metal form of death casting its shadow on us.

There was no escape now. A lightbulb, a walking diamond, and robo-death kept us pinned in the middle of the town.

* * *

 **Vilgax's Ship**

" _So. That is why he felt,_ familiar _,_ " Vilgax uttered the last word with great disdain. " _Tetrax has been working for me all along. I should be flattered he is still loyal to the most powerful being in the galaxy. But his species has caused me great pain._ " The villain's words were being spat at no one, even his droids were buzzing around to their own thing not taking notice of their master's ramblings.

Vilgax was remembering the resistance he was met with when he began his conquest of the galaxy many decades ago. Petropia had been a setback in his charts. The now shattered rock world put up a difficult fight that not even the Omnitrix could turn around. Many Chimeran soldiers had fallen as well leading to Vilgax opting to switch to drones and droids for the rest of his time as conqueror and turning his people into a peaceful society.

But the tide was turned when he met and manipulated the young Petrosapien that was still under his employment. For Tetrax to keep working under his thumb must mean that Vilgax had a big impact on him. And of course, it had, the bounty hunter had seen Vilgax's raw power when he destroyed the indestructible planet.

He still didn't trust the Petrosapien though. But if he succeeded in retrieving the Omnimatrix, he would be forced to consider giving him a chance. Failure though, would give him a good excuse to correct the messy job he did on him and finally dispose of the last threat to his career.

* * *

Then the craziest thing happened. The Megawatt lightbulb deflected an energy beam that the Robot shot at us. It ricocheted into the diamond blasting more chunks of it off.

"What?" Ben gaped.

"They must be mad at the alien for attacking them," Gwen thought out loud.

"Then let's take advantage of that and use our allies wisely," Max commanded.

While sparing a glance at the giant robot, it then occurred to me why Tetrax hadn't used his powers when we first met. He was afraid of Vilgax. The Galactic conqueror must've used him in this timeline to destroy his planet too. But why was he still helping the warlord instead of switching sides and helping out the good guys, siding with the other bounty hunters when he realized what they were doing? It didn't make sense why he wasn't in search of a way to repent for his sins this time.

I transformed back into Feedback and raced to meet Vilgax's attack head-on while the others searched for makeshift weapons to use, including the timed out Ben. Gwen came back to join me with a big wrench in her hand and Max and Ben raced off to help the Megawatt fight the giant robot. How they were even going to fight it, I don't know.

While I traded physical blows I tried to think like a supervillain. If I was going to team up with the person who wiped out my entire race, I need to have a pretty damn good reason to do it. Either I'm a Sociopath who doesn't give a fuck for the entirety of my people — maybe because I was bullied or was the runt of society — and it pays good money, or I was being threatened with my life to comply with whatever it is I'm ordered to do. But the last reason doesn't make much sense considering that the previous bounty hunters didn't know who he was and he was hiding his powers from everyone including Vilgax. It had to be something else.

I jumped into the air as more diamond spikes erupted from the asphalt and dropped onto it without any harm coming to me. I slid down the thing and launched myself to tackle the stocky alien. I crashed hard into his chest and knocked him to the ground while I rolled to a graceful stop ending it with a heroic slide.

Tetrax flipped up and created a diamond sword with multiple sharp edges. It grew to a long length that caused it to drag behind him as he walked calmly toward me. Gwen came rushing in and used the wrench to once again surprise Tetrax and disarming him from the weapon. She tried to go in for a third hit but Tetrax had recovered from the ambush and caught the wrench before it connected again. He pulled it out of her grasp and violently kicked her aside in the stomach forcing her to curl in pain.

That angered me and I blindly attacked him trying to get fast hits in on him. He was too heavy to defend against my blinding speed but was managing to block some of my attacks.

" _How dare you hurt her!_ " I roared. But my emotions made my attacks predictable and he was able to catch my wrists as they came down on him. He then swung me up into the air where I sailed into a telephone post and partially splintered the trunk.

I propped myself up and taunted Tetrax to get him away from where Gwen was lying defenceless.

" _You won't be able to get Vilgax's mercy. You will never be able to get the Omnitrix from my friend and Vilgax will have his patience run out. He'll kill you,_ " I sneered. If he wanted to be a villain, he would get treated like a villain.

Once he was far enough away from Gwen, I revealed what I did to him. " _Oh and. I left a surprise for you on your suit._ "

He finally looked at his arms and torso to see that I had left him covered in plasm. I smiled as it all finally detonated before he could race to me. He was on the floor now, still conscious, but hopefully tired. And I guess his suit had taken too much damage because his mask retracted and revealed his face.

Another reason why he would join Vilgax came to mind upon seeing how badly cracked it was. That's why he's never spoken. He was too injured to. All of the cracks were centred around his neck and an eye was even a grayish-yellow showing that it no longer functioned.

I nearly gagged at the sight. Tetrax was with him because he was terrified of Vilgax. He must've been the one to have done this to him. And only the people with power succeed, that's the way every character in shows always thinks.

" _Tetrax, we can protect you from that monster. You don't have to keep helping Vilgax!_ " My promises fell on deaf ears as he once again punched into the ground and summoned a mountain of crystals to grow out of the ground. One of the rods found its way into the Lightbulb the Megawatts were using and shattered it causing the swarm of aliens to seek another place to find refuge.

— _Hey! Control that guy! We just lost those Megawatts!_ — Ben shouted out from one of the legs of the Robot he was able to cover and control as Upgrade.

" _Why didn't you transform into Diamondhead?! That's how we beat it last time!_ " I yelled back. I had to quickly dodge a group of flechettes Tetrax shot at me though and carried Gwen out of danger.

"The Megawatts reflected one of its beams! It didn't do anything to it, unlike last time. The Robot must've been upgraded!" Max explained.

I landed on a roof a couple of blocks away from Tetrax. I wasn't worried about him going after Ben, I was the one who defeated him twice now. Anyone's pride would force them to go after their attacker. I just needed a quick breather.

Purple light glowed out of my skin as I shrunk back to my human form. And the instant I was completely back to normal, my blood went cold. I felt pins and needles attacking my body as my thoughts were thrown into chaos. My eyes couldn't see anything as I lost focus and everything became blurry. My breathing became short and heavy and fast. Tears welled up in my eyes. But I wasn't feeling any kind of fear or terror. This was a completely different feeling. I was on my hands and knees unable to get up or do anything. Even the loud sounds of the fight that was happening right next to me sounded like they were coming from millions of miles away.

"Mia… Mia… Listen… focus… voice," Gwen sounded like she was above me while I was underwater. I wanted to focus on her, hear what she was trying to say. I wanted to do anything, but I was frozen with sweat dripping from me. It was even on my hands.

"...Please, listen… on my voice. Ahhh!" Even when she screamed I couldn't do anything.

I felt a sharp pain in my side as something blunt and heavy hit it. I was knocked off my knees and onto my back. It was enough to break me out of my immobile state but not enough to break whatever was happening to me psychologically. So I cowered pitifully and crawled to a corner while I heard cries of struggle.

I was attacked again with a punch to the face and a final kick to the stomach before Gwen transformed me. The adrenaline of being in a different alien body brought me out of the mental confusion just in time to see a planetarium punt Tetrax into the distance directed to the water Dam.

I swear the structure was able to look concerned at me. "I'm okay," I assured the thing. Apparently, I wasn't going to miss out on the most memorable thing about the tourist trap episode, the planetarium robot.

I gave myself a once over and saw that Gwen had turned me into Backspin. The whole ordeal she just ended was a thing of the past. Not even shakes remained in this form.

"Thank you," I looked at Gwen and was met with tears.

"I thought he was going to kill you," she blurted. "We… I Uh." She couldn't even finish what she wanted to say.

"I'm fine now. Let's go help Ben, and Max," she nodded in acceptance as I picked her up and beckoned the Megawatt thing to follow me.

"We won't be able to beat that thing by using brute force only," I stopped in front of Max cradling Gwen.

As embarrassing as it sounds, I didn't want to let go of the girl, at least not right now. And I gave her the excuse that we still weren't done in order to keep holding her.

"What do you suppose we do then?" Max asked.

Red light blasted from above and a second later I caught Ben by the collar and dropped him safely on the ground. "Hey! Why don't I get to be held like Gwen?" He whined.

"We just went through something," I snapped. Gwen gave me a concerned look and Max a questioning glance. "I'll tell you later," I made him an empty promise. "Right now I need you guys to lead that thing to the Dam." I pointed in the direction Tetrax had been sent flying and ran off with Gwen.

I briefly stopped next to the Megawatts and told them what I told the boys and then we were off to set up for the arrival of the huge robot.

Now in the safe distance between the Dam and the town, I exited the transformation again once I set Gwen down. Then I tackled her with a hug and a bunch of crying from both of us.

"Thank you thank you thank you so much," I sobbed unwilling to release her from my grasp.

"I thought you were going to die, Mia. I couldn't do nothing. I couldn't just watch that monster take advantage and kill you while you were defenceless."

At the moment I couldn't feel shit. I had bruises for days after being beaten badly by a huge lump of diamond. And even if I did feel the pain I don't think I cared. I was safe and away from the things that could kill me at the moment.

"These watches have done nothing but attract all of this murderous shit," I spat. Gwen chuckled a bit finding some levity in my cynic words.

"Don't tell me you're hating the road trip. If it wasn't for this and my doofus cousin, we wouldn't be friends, so these _watches_ haven't really been _that_ bad."

We stood there trying to calm ourselves when the footsteps got closer.

"You're going to need your hands to fight you know," Gwen chided.

"I'm just scared. I don't want to let go. I'm not fit for this superhero stuff. I—"

We disentangled as Gwen scolded me, "We've been over this already. You have saved my cousin's butt way too many times. You got this. You just need to learn how to control your fear."

"How?"

"Start with breathing exercises. Deep breath in. Breathe out." I did as she instructed. It didn't help me feel better but I pretended it did to make her feel good instead. Going alien helped me feel better anyway.

"I feel great," I tried to smile naturally.

I found myself taking a deep breath as I scrolled the list of aliens I had. 7 aliens only and Megawatt was nowhere in sight. I'll have to experiment with the playlist thing.

"Let's see what we can do." As Backspin, I blurred away from Gwen to try something out.

"Azmuth, turn off chameleon mode on the Omnitrix, please." No response. Frustration bred inside me. "Omnitrix, disable chameleon mode," I repeated.

- _Error. Unable to follow. Chameleon mode remains active._ -

"Ugh. Omnitrix exit transformation." I didn't need the interface but I wanted to make turning human easy. Ben made using one alien look easy but at least he had a time out limit. I need interference to time out or to not need to stay alien.

Thankfully that command worked. I shrank back into being Mia in purple colours.

"Omnitrix, scan for Azmuth artificial intelligence."

- _Unable to comply. User unauthorized to issue command._ -

"Mia! Get ready! We're coming in hot!" I heard the familiar rasp of Heatblast.

"Omnitrix, bind my last action with the single phrase word, _Revert_."

- _Vocal binding set._ -

I was finished with all this experimentation. I quickly transformed back into Feedback and bounded after the robot. I was caught in surprise when it ignored Ben the moment it saw me. Did Vilgax know that there was suddenly a second Omnitrix?

The Robot fired a laser at me and swatted Heatblast away like a fly. He soared so fast that the flames on his head kept getting smothered and turned into black smoke.

Slamming on the breaks, I drew in as much energy as I could siphon away from the robot but I ended up overloading and shocking myself while it didn't even twitch.

"Watch out Max!" I shouted the warning as I started running up the Robot. The Megawatts distracted it with a grappling hold while I generated more plasma that I smeared onto the armour.

Under me, the elderly man ran as fast as he could to avoid the oncoming series of explosions that managed to at least rip some pieces of the Droid. I climbed inside of it through the resulting gash of my attack and quickly realized my mistake. There were miles of coils inside that were too heavy for me to push aside.

I tried to pull myself out of there as fast as I could but I was trapped.

The droid's metal creaked and the sounds of gears moving began to drag me deeper into the Droid. I cried out for help and caught a glimpse of Heatblast riding a flaming chunk of rock in the sky before I was sucked into the mechanical noises and pitch-black insides of the Droid.

For the second time, I found myself back in the void, floating. Vilgax's form — he looked so much like Myaxx, thin and deadly — loomed over me with an alien expression.

" _Ahh. The young Osmosian Pup. We meet at last._ " I felt a cold anger float from those words and it unsettled me.

I was human again, defenceless against my feelings of fear and uselessness. "What do you want?" I squeaked.

" _I want to make a deal with you. Help me acquire my device. Help me retrieve what was stolen from my wrist, and I will recompense you greatly, Osmosian pup._ "

I floated in silence. Frozen in fear. Vilgax didn't know about the duplicate. He thought I was like Kevin and Aggregor. I closed my eyes tight.

" _You amuse me, pup. I am aware of the DNA filter that you have._ "

"I know who you are, Vilgax," I interrupted suddenly. My body tensed as I stood my ground. "You're a conqueror that removes his problems. I won't work with you."

" _Yes. Your knowledge about all that is what makes me curious and interested in you, pup. You can't know any of these things. It doesn't make sense that those backstabbing mercenaries I hired would've told you as you already knew this when I fought you in your Petrosapien form._

" _Think about my offer, Pup. I can modify your DNA alterer to be stronger than what a Galvan would want it to be._ "

The whole world fell apart. I ordered my eyes to be pried open to see what was going on with me in the real world. I watched from the inside as the giant Robot that captured me was being peeled apart with crystals.

I couldn't move as I fell. The wind rushed around me, battering my face and making my eyes tear up. Surprisingly, I didn't feel anything, not even a drop of terror. Falling felt like a long time but I wasn't even halfway down when Diamondhead managed to jump up and catch me safely.

"Thanks, Ben." I just want to close my eyes a little bit. I'm tired of fighting, tired of running, tired of being in danger, and tired of crying and being afraid. This could all wait while I took a nap. But I can't, I fought weakly against the powerful lull of sleep. The world appeared like a slit.

My gaze wandered down to the band on my right hand. Oh, my Omnitrix was pulsing red with electricity zapping now and then. Looks cool. I don't blame myself for thinking all this, I was exhausted for Christ's sake! But my carelessness thankfully vanished the moment I saw diamonds erupting from the ground making its way towards us.

My eyes peeled wide open and I slammed down the face of my wrist band. I didn't even wait for the transformation to finish or to even know which alien I chose. I just jumped out of Diamondhead's arms and ran towards the eruption growing until I was half the height of the crystals forming.

I spun on the heels of my feet and delivered a powerful and fast blow destroying the chunks of diamonds. The razorblades on Backspin's feet were mighty powerful. Same with the leg muscles considering how I managed to go through those things without feeling any pain.

With the threat to my friends being taken care of, I raced toward Tetrax planning to do the same with his face. The cracks on his neck seemed to be kind of lonely, I should give them some friends for company.

Rage roared in my ears as I jumped into the air to deliver the blow. It was the same rage that protected me from the pain of Tetrax's grip on my foot. Without a change in his expression, he threw me back the way I came from. By instinct, my back flaps flew out and caught the air resistance to stop me from travelling too far. The talons on my heels came out to meet the ground and steady my balance and I was off again trying to fight Tetrax.

I wasn't thinking straight. My fighting style wasn't like Ben's. Even with all the anger clouding my decisions, I was still analyzing Tetrax as I fought. I memorized the way he caught my kicks and how he dodged my punches. So as the fight went on, he stopped blocking most of my attacks. A kick to his leg here pushed him to the ground for several moments. A kick to his face allowed me more openings to his side and back to attack. Even when he formed a dagger out of diamonds, I was still fast enough to dodge the slices in the air.

All of this was being done in silence. I wasn't releasing jokes or taunts like Ben always did during his fights. I was a to the point girl trying her best to protect her friends from a crazy maniac that committed genocide on his own people and kept working with the madman he helped do that with.

Tetrax slammed his fist on the ground surprising me and throwing me off balance. I tripped and staggered back a couple of steps unable to find my footing. This was a large enough opening for the mercenary to summon crystals all over the floor until they touched me and trapped one of my legs.

He charged me brandishing his dagger. I just stood there hopeless and defenceless. All of the power I had came from my legs, my claws were sharp but had no power coming from my puny arms to make them useful against his diamond body.

Then another trail of spikes slammed into Tetrax knock him to the ground. My anger had gone away after the close call and I was left to view my surroundings. Our fight had brought us even closer to the Dam. It was like 20 ft away now. I can't believe that I had been so absorbed by the fight that I hadn't noticed how close the Dam was.

"Mia! I have an idea! Err… I mean, Gwen had an idea." Diamondhead stopped at my side.

I looked at him and listened carefully to the plan. It was a quick and simple one. By the time Tetrax was back on his feet, we were done discussing what we were going to do. I nodded at Ben and left him to deal with Tetrax for a bit while I backed away far enough from the battle, but didn't bother to hide from Tetrax's sight. There was no way he would be able to get word to Vilgax after today if he became suspicious of my " _DNA Filter_."

"Revert," I whispered. I shrunk back down to my human form and scrolled to Feedback's silhouette before transforming back. " _Feedback!_ " I realized that before now, I really hadn't been calling out my alien transformations. I wanted to start that ritual.

I came back to Ben's aid and stared down Tetrax.

"Do it, Mia." I nodded at Ben's request and blasted Tetrax with all the energy I could produce. This wasn't an attack though, it wasn't meant to send him running for the hills. I was focusing the energy and magnetizing the mercenary. If you've played Minecraft, then you'd be aware that some crystals could actually be charged with energy, such as quartz. That's basically what I was trying to do.

I knew that Feedback was powerful enough to achieve this. And if Gwen thought it was possibly too, then it was a given that it would work. And suddenly, I could taste the change in Tetrax's magnetic field. I switched the energy beam I was firing into a concussive one without stopping.

" _It's done. Create the prison!_ " I ordered out of breath. Keeping this blast up was taking all the strength I had, and I wasn't sure how much of it I had left.

I heard Ben groan next to me as he raised his arms. I watched as a tent formed around Tetrax and blocked my blast. Even though I was no longer attacking Tetrax, he seemed to be a bit too dazed to notice what was going on.

The barrier keeping Tetrax trapped continued to grow. Sides grew to make the former tent take the shape of an obelisk before another tent formed upside down on the bottom part. At this point, Tetrax was breaking out of his daze and realizing what we were going to do.

Before he could touch the crystal and order it to fall apart and release him, Diamondhead whistled to the Megawatts. The sun was blocked as the sudden swarm of the tiny aliens came to us. They made a mad dash toward the new structure that they had agreed to call home when Gwen went over the plan during my fight with Tetrax.

Tetrax was pulled away from the Shard's wall centimetres before he could touch it. He floated in the middle of the Shard that Diamondhead had created to be as roomy as it could while it remained compact. Both he and the Shard gained a faint glow that slowly strengthened as more Megawatts disappeared into it. We watched it get more intense before the last alien disappeared into it. But before it did, I noticed that the cracks on his neck and eye grew a little more under the intense pressure of magnetism. He deserved it.

* * *

"Are you sure this can hold?" Gwen interrupted the Mayor from his unenthusiastic scolding.

The hillbilly man looked at the Shard and inspected it closely. I'm disgusted to say that he even licked it only to get shocked by one of the Megawatts, much to their delight.

"Well, as long as the people, _Mind The Signs_ ," the last part was directed toward Ben who sheepishly grinned.

There was a red sign in front of the Shard reading in bold letters, 'In case of emergency, do not break.'

With this entire battle, and the state of my mind coming into question for me and Gwen, we climbed onto the Rustbucket and drove off.


	6. Watts Happening at the Mall?

**Heitor** \- _Sini is fine. Don't worry about the shows you haven't watched or come off as demanding. As I go on I'll make sure to explain the barebones of what comes out in the later shows and I'm a little thick-skinned when it comes to feeling insulted. I'm glad you're enjoying things so far. Some of your worries/ideas are present in this chapter. But some others I actually forgot about. I created this story 2 years ago and don't really remember much of what I began only ideas that I've thought of recently. And for the two Omnitrices (the term Psychobos used) I didn't want to just do rehashes of what happened in the show. I want to actually challenge myself and come up with new problems and solutions to them. And having the same aliens for Mia just wouldn't do for me._

 **Guest Review-** _I had no idea that my character was coming off as a bit "_ Marry Sue-ish" _But I can assure you that it is not my intention. But as for appearing in everything, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The series focuses on her so it wouldn't make sense if she suddenly disappears for a few chapters while I focus on something else. But if you mean her being present in every episode/plot of the series, then I can safely say that I am planning to have her go off on her own adventures within the set universe. It'll be a fun thing to do when I come to that. Also, Marry Sue is when a character is better at everything right off the bat and is a perfect angel that can do no wrong. In this chapter, I show that she can in fact do something wrong. Plus, she hasn't defeated aliens by herself completely. She's only helped out. So I don't feel she's one._

 _To everyone else, don't be afraid to make requests :) Or to ask questions you feel need to be answered. This is a safe space as long as we aren't inappropriate or racist or any of that shit._

 _Another short note. Since I didn't upload this for Valentine's day like I intended since it wasn't complete yet, I'm uploading it today. It's got some hints towards a Romantic and love theme because it's taking place at the beginning of summer not during Valentine's. And I also keep forgetting to mention that finishing these chapters so early is thanks to my beta/cowriter/editor, Professor Oswin. He's another fanfic author on this site but he's been too busy to update anything because of his college n stuff._

* * *

"Ben, where are we going?" I protested against the boy's pull.

We were in the city again — still in the desert but at least we were in a civilized place where we can get some AC — and Ben was dragging me by the hand to the nearest mall for whatever reason. Gwen was left behind and I was getting the feeling that I would be missing her level-headedness and feminine similarities with Ben.

People shot amused glances as we went by. I rolled my eyes. We're kids, we aren't dating. Get a life, weirdos. I shot a fiery glare at a man in glasses making him tug at his collar uncomfortably. Good, at least he would know what I'm feeling with all these "knowing" stares.

I was welcomed by cold air blasting inside of the mall accompanied by the background noise of multiple conversations happening at once. I could've taken in the comfort of a normal day where I wouldn't be facing any death threats but Ben wasn't having any of that. We continued on his way ignoring all of the delicious smells of food. Burgers, Chinese Food, Pizza, you name it it was all coming from somewhere in here and Ben didn't care.

My hand was finally freed from him when we got to where he wanted to go. It was a theatre inside of here with 7 features. I groaned when I spotted one of the titles on the list. I knew why we were here before he could tell me and I wasn't even faintly amused by it.

"I got us two tickets to Fight Fight Sumos II. Isn't that great?" He gave me a wide grin.

My eyes fell onto my Omnitrix band and I felt my hands itching to scroll through it and transform into Backspin to get out of there as fast as I could. I didn't enjoy the idea of watching a pair of fat men in underwear wrestling with each other. I don't share his same interests, why couldn't he understand that? If he wants to hang out why not do something else?

"Why don't we do something else?"

"Come on. You'll like this. I'm sure of it. It's just like Sumo Slammers but without all the magic and monsters. It's more _realistic_ ," I facepalmed and groaned loudly, he still couldn't take a hint. It's very hard to believe that this dense motherfucker grows up to become a cute universe-saving superhero.

I think it's safe to say that I didn't enjoy the movie one bit. The closest I've come to liking action movies are with fantasy and sci-fi genres with superheroes involved. I'm more of a comedy and documentary kind of girl when I'm not watching cartoons and other animation things. So when Gwen called me up half-way into the movie, I silently snuck out to leave Ben to his things.

"Gwen!" I whispered. "It's so good to talk to you. Your cousin nearly killed me with boredom with the movie he clearly forced me to watch with him," I complained.

—Yeah. That sounds like Ben. He's a little special when it comes to - girls. If you get what I mean.— I was amused at her treatment of him.

"Yeah, Ben tends to have _four thumbs_ around other girls," I mentally groaned at the terrible joke, but Gwen still laughed at it.

—Well, if you want to hang out together while Ben keeps himself entertained, then come to the fountain. I've been wanting to go somewhere to relax after all of these fights.— she explained.

"I'm already here," I smiled widely as she looked up from the fountain and spotted me waving at her. This time, I gladly allowed her to take my hand and lead me to where she wanted to go. Her grasp was much softer than Ben's and she wasn't dragging me along after her. We were at the same pace.

"What are you thinking of?" Gwen giggled.

Ugh, why does she have to be so cute? Wait, did I just think that? My face reddened madly at the realization and I forced off those thoughts.

"Nothing! I mean, there's nothing to think about. Not that you wouldn't be worth thinking about, but I just have nothing in my mind. I err, zoned out?" I'm pretty sure that the redness of my blush drained in a second making me paler than Casper. Hmm, maybe I should name my version of Ghostfreak, Casper.

Gwen just giggled again during all of these thoughts of mine. Fucking hell, just kill me now.

We entered one of the Beauty and Spa salons in the mall. It was a huge place with a modern look. White with abstract art. Small potted Palm trees decorated the corners of the waiting room which was furnished with black seats and tables.

"Hi, we're here for the full experience," while Gwen talked to the front desk woman I decided that I was going to pay for the thing and started looking for my credit card in my wallet.

After the Limax incident, I decided to talk to my parents from this world and apparently, they were rich. My mom is a Spanish Anchorwoman while my Dad is a Biotechnician. Talking to them made me miss my parents. They had the same personalities, the same experiences, but they were leading different lives. It was very weird talking to them.

With their money, I tried to subtly question them why I wasn't enrolled in a private school like Gwen. The reason was that I am apparently very convincing. Mia-10 really wanted to go to a public school, so my parents pulled some strings and were able to put me into Bellwood Elementary, something that they aren't supposed to do because of the amount of money they make which was against their school policy. I sound so badass in this world. I just wish that I could find some of that girl's strength.

I also found out I had a bank account with a decent amount of money for whatever I wanted. All in all, things weren't bad with money matters.

* * *

 **Yesterday**

Mia decided it was time to call and talk to her parents in this world during the evening the day they left the tourist trap. It was a hard decision to do, but she needed to know what she would be dealing with when this vacation was over, she doubted she would ever be able to go back to her old life. She was also wondering why _they_ hadn't called her yet.

Being around Ben and Gwen wouldn't be a good place to call. The two were constantly arguing whenever Mia left their side. She also wanted some privacy with the call. In a motorhome, privacy would be the last thing you'd be able to get.

So she decided to step outside.

"I'm going on ahead guys," Mia informed her friends. Ben smirked and activated his watch thinking it was going to be about using their aliens. "Alone, please." Mia shut him down quickly.

"What's wrong?" Gwen asked.

"I just want to call my parents. Talk to them in privacy," she motioned to the lack of room in the vehicle and the two kids seemed to understand.

"Okay, just call if you get into any trouble," Max said.

Mia scrolled through the icons and selected Backspin. Her legs gained muscle and elongated. Her eyes narrowed into purple slits while her mouth was covered up. Flaps sprouted from her back and nails grew into talons. The last thing that changed was all the purple and black fur that sprouted from her body before becoming covered in a new black jumpsuit. The Omnitrix was ever-evolving. Nothing had managed to stay the same since it latched onto her wrist. Maybe someday it would run out of upgrades to showcase.

She opened the Rustbucket's door and jumped out to run off leaving the Tennyson family behind eating her dust.

There was still plenty of sunlight when she came to a stop many miles away. The dirt road that she was running on suffered long gashes from her stop but she was no longer Backspin. To the side, there was a tree with a bench underneath. A rest stop of sorts for wayward travellers. And her resting place for the next several minutes that would be spent in talking with her strange parents.

—Hello? Mia? Honey? You finally called. Howard! Mia's on the phone!— the sweet soft voice of her mom with a subtle accent greeted her ears. Her eyes welled up as she let her homesickness flood her. _She's not my mom_ , she couldn't help thinking that. Even though it was the truth, she still scolded herself. It didn't matter where she was, her parents are still very much important to her.

The sound of footsteps running was followed by the cheery and strong voice of her father. —It's about time sweetie, it's been a little over a week since you went off on that cross-country trip with that classmate of yours. You promised to call us if we didn't bug you so much.—

Well, that explained that. They didn't call because they didn't not care about Mia-10. It's because she doesn't like to be bothered.

"I know dad, I just. It's been a busy couple of days."

—Dad? What happened to Daddy? Don't tell me I've missed your maturity in just a couple of days— he joked.

 _Gah! Screw up number 1._ She worried about how many more things there were that she didn't know about this world. She wouldn't even know where to begin to explain who she was and where their real daughter is. She took a breather for a second to calm her nerves. They wouldn't find out. That wouldn't even be a possibility for them.

"No… nothing like that Daddy. I'm just a little tired. We went to an amusement town and there was a lot of stuff to do," she lied. "So, I just wanted to call to say hi and let you guys know that I'm okay."

—Alright, Pumpkin.— A knot formed in her throat when she heard the man use the nickname her father always used to call her.

—Bye, sweetheart.—

With a quiet bye from her part, she hung up and was left by herself to curl up in the dying sunlight that brought in cold desert winds waiting for the Rustbucket to come by while she thought about the people she would never be able to see again.

Alone in the middle of nowhere, unseen by any cars that would normally occupy the road, she was able to boldly cry and howl into the air. She was completely alone in this new world she found herself in. She wasn't anything like her doppelganger and had no way to tap into that girl's boldness.

Her thoughts whirled, somewhere in there were feelings of disgust at her own weakness. She couldn't save anyone if she kept on like this. Crying at every difficulty. Feeling terror at every alien encounter of hers. The only way she was ever strong was when she was in her alien transformations. Their strength and resilience drowned her weaknesses. She ached to feel like that all the time. But she still had problems caused by her time trapped in transformation.

* * *

I wiped away my tears as I pulled out the gold-gilded bank card and handed it over to the desk-woman. Even though my family was never poor, we still didn't have as much money as this alternate version of us. I also had a shiny metallic credit card next to an Identification card. Nice thinking Mia-10. Making it hard to deport me with an ID. Though, we were still a decade away from the troubling future of Trump.

"Hey, we deserve this," Gwen rested a hand on my shoulder and smiled encouragingly at me. "You're going to enjoy this."

We didn't even have to wait in the waiting room along with the handful of women there. Those are the perks of having money.

* * *

I let out a moan of pleasure as my feet were being massaged. I felt like I was in heaven here. In 30 minutes we already had a mud bath, manicure, underwent aromatherapy, had facials, and we're now getting foot massages.

I'm pretty sure that Gwen was enjoying the moment as well, but I was feeling too much pleasure to even open my eyes and check on her. I just spread my toes more and relaxed my body to let those nimble hands of the employee work their magic. This was more refreshing than being chased around by evil bad guys.

Speaking of, I wonder if the boy hero even noticed if I was gone. He was so engrossed with the movie when I left him. But I don't even know how long that movie is supposed to last. I groaned in annoyance realizing that at any moment he could show up to drag me off again. Before he did that, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't in my undergarments, so I had the worker stop and after excusing myself with Gwen, I went to put on my clothes in the shower room.

Then the instant I came out of the room I found myself being kidnapped by a blue blur. It was not a pleasant experience. I felt like my stomach was left behind and suddenly slammed back into me. I'm so glad I'd never done this without someone's consent.

After that wild ride, I made sure to give Ben a piece of my mind which lasted until his Omnitrix timed out. I tried to make him promise that he wouldn't do that to me again but the boy is an expert at dodging conversations.

"How about we go get some ice cream?" I opened my mouth ready to chew him out but stopped myself when my brain registered what he said.

"Huh?"

"Yeah. Want to go get ice-cream? I'm kind of tired of those weird snacks Grandpa Max makes. And I'm a little hungry, plus I got some _money_." I should've known. I thought he was trying to fix his selfish thinking from a while ago but this was just more self-centeredness from his part. But at least it was something that I did like.

"Eh, why not?"

We went to one of the stands in the middle of the mall to get a Banana split to share.

"That'll be 5.99," the boy said.

Ben dug into his cargo pants and made an entire scene of looking for a wallet. I just sighed and mentally prepared myself for the upcoming request.

"Hey, uh, Mia? Do you got some money for this?" He grinned sheepishly and scratched his head. I forgot how much I was annoyed by season 1 Ben. It would take a couple of episodes more for him to dial down on his annoying nature.

After paying for the order, we went to sit down and I tried as much as I could to enjoy the meal. Let me just say that Ben was not making this easy. He just kept going on and on about our battles with the aliens so far.

"And then I had Diamondhead grow a gigantic spike that pierced through that giant robot. And then I made spikes shoot out inside to tear it apart and free you from its trap. It was awesome! All in a day's work for a hero," he struck a pose to which I just shook my head.

"I know," I sighed. "I was there. Remember? And in case you forgot, I saved you from the Diamondhead mercenary right after. Without me, you would've been toast."

I snorted at his failed attempt to impress me which resulted in his injured pride. My phone started buzzing again and I quickly excused myself to take the call.

—Ben kidnapped you.— I was met with the voice that made my knees weak.

"Yep," I said and I'm pretty sure she didn't notice the sudden pitch in my voice.

—I'm at the food court. Don't let him see where you go to give us more time away from that Doofus.—

I dialled up Ameliorate and slithered up the walls in liquid form keeping out of sight as I got far enough away from Ben. But before I headed to the food court, I released my transformation and chose a box of chocolates to take with me.

I entered the noise of the food court and looked around for Mia until I spotted her waving from one of the tables. She already had two orders of Chinese food — ack! how thoughtful — waiting in front of her. She must've paid for them herself.

"Wow. Those look pretty good," she smiled at the chocolates I placed on the table.

The back of my neck tingled pleasantly when her arm briefly brushed mine when I reached for my plate.

While we ate, I told her about what Ben did and my thoughts on his actions. I was a little mad about what was going on but she knew what to say to calm me down.

"And about my cousin, don't worry about it. His crush on you will wear off. You just need to give him time."

I nodded understanding her advice but I just wanted to do something to stop this sudden madness of his, "I know but I like Ben better when we're just being friends. He's a good partner to fight next to but this is just too much for me to handle."

"Hey. It's okay. Like I've already told you. I'm here for you." Gwen sat in silence as she twirled some chow-mein onto her fork. She had something on her mind and I waited for her to tell me what that was.

"I've never exactly had a best friend or a friend at all you know. I'm the smartest girl in school and even in a private school, I guess it's a bit too much because all the kids tend to avoid me," she looked past me at nothing. I felt a tug in my heart, I didn't like the idea of her being alone and I felt the need to protect her I guess.

"But I feel comfortable and happy being around you. I'm just glad we could be friends, Mia." She smiled at me.

I felt like I was floating. I could barely feel my body as I nervously pushed my strawberry blonde bangs away from my eyes. Why was she making me like this? Hollow, empty somehow. I cracked a small grin and affectionately squeezed her hands, but I couldn't feel them in my hands.

To distract myself, I began to weave my still wet hair back into their braids. My fingers nimbly went through the routine easily and during the few minutes that it took me to complete my hair, Gwen stared with great interest. I felt good knowing that she liked my braided crown. Maybe I should teach her how to make it if I can convince her to let her hair grow earlier.

"I'm happy to be your friend too, Gwen," I said once I was calmed down.

My brain is truly stupid. It decided a terrible time to remember the deal that Vilgax proposed to me. Just thinking about his cold voice made my back receive a chill. I would never be able to betray my new family.

 _Are you so sure?_ Vilgax's red eyes appeared when I squeezed my eyes shut to get rid of those thoughts. I started hyperventilating then I blacked out.

* * *

 ** _3rd POV_**

As Mia's breath quickened the Omnitrix Band on her arm glowed red. Electricity zapped out of it and slithered around her arm.

"Mia? Are—are you okay?" Gwen asked once she noticed what was happening. She tried to reach out and touch her friend's shoulder but pulled it back in surprise when she got shocked.

"Watch out, coming through guys," the throaty voice of Fourarms neared the ongoing incident. "Whoa, what's going on with Mia, Gwen?" His eyes widened at Mia's stiff body being kept in place by the electrical surge of the Omnitrix.

"Wait!" Gwen tried to warn FourArms not to make the same mistake she did but was too late. The Omnitrix produced a sphere of purple energy pushing the bulky red guy into the Sloppy Joe food court.

This sent all of the people — they surprisingly hadn't been scared at the appearance of FourArms — running in a panic to get away as fast as they could.

Mia was now a mischievous Megawatt standing on the table poking curiously at the food that was still on the table.

"Mia, are you okay?" Gwen repeated out of breath. She didn't try to touch her friend this time already having learnt from what happened to her and her cousin.

Megawatt ignored the worried girl though and tried to bite into a chicken wing. She spat it out in disgust and zapped the thing into the distance freeing its hand to grab a phone someone dropped during the commotion. She opened her mouth revealing a bunch of crooked teeth that were ready to bite into it to suck all of the power out but Gwen snatched it away making her teeth clacked together painfully.

Gwen's eyes widened as she locked eyes with Megawatt. It garbled noises at her before surging away as electricity. Megawatt was gone but Gwen could still see the red eyes that had glared at her.

"What happened?" FourArms groaned the question.

"That isn't Mia," Gwen uttered.

"Who else could it be? I don't want to believe that she would just attack me but no one else has a watch like this." One of his arms pointed at the Omnitrix symbol on his shoulder.

"It isn't her," Gwen repeated. "Every time she transforms, her alien eyes turn purple. This Megawatt she turned into has red ones. I'm not sure what's going on but she isn't herself," she explained.

FourArms stretches his bottom muscular arms and used the top ones to crack his head. "Maybe, but she's going to hurt people. We have to stop her first and then help her."

Gwen protested as her cousin picked her up and bounded after Mia. It was easy to follow the trail of destruction that was left in the wake of the Megawatt. A couple of broken cash registers spewed money out of their stands allowing a couple of stragglers to take advantage of the opportunity. If the surveillance cameras hadn't been fried, those guys would be facing a lot of trouble later on.

Megawatt was found picking up a fat kid, next to them a smaller thinner one with glasses was cowering on the floor. Perhaps it was a bully, but regardless of the intention behind Megawatt, it was still frightening both kids and was a potential danger to the bigger one. But it was comical, a tiny thing like it picking up what seemed to be a 180 lb kid.

"Hey, Megawatt," Fourarms guttered, "Take your hands off that kid. I don't want to hurt you, but it's a hero's job to protect everyone." He poised all of his arms to make a point.

The living energy only cackled as it tossed the boy aside. Megawatt cracked its knuckles and zapped towards it with mischievous intent. Before it could attack Fourarms, it was knocked into a glass jar that Gwen sealed with a plastic lid. Its face fell and it began to try and punch the glass in an effort to get out of there.

Gwen huffed as she watched the two boys, that were in Megawatt's way, run off. All of the customers nearby kept their distance and watched curiously to see if the strange duo had actually managed to capture the dangerous thing.

"Come on, little guy. Just tell us what you did to our friend," Gwen pleaded.

"Oh, this is all my fault," Fourarms began.

His cousin looked up with a confused look, "How?"

"Mia must hate me, for the selfish way I've been acting with her. But I just don't know how to be around her, I don't even know what she likes. This must be some form of revenge on me." One of his arms covered his face in shame.

"Ben," Gwen caressed the arm nearest to her. "This isn't her. She wouldn't attack innocent people. You might not know her, but I've seen a side of her that I can't even share with you."

He was about to ask what she meant when the jar Gwen held began to audibly vibrate. Megawatt looked up at the two and smiled. It stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry. It turned into a red streak of lightning that bounced fast inside making the jar shake even harder.

Gwen tossed it into the air where it exploded sending charged shards flying. She and FourArms avoided the majority of the shrapnel. Unfortunately, one of the shards managed to nick her at the end of her jaw under the ear.

Megawatt zapped off causing the onlookers to flee. Gwen didn't even try to chase after it and only stood in surprise not even bothering to clean the blood making its way down her neck. Ben noticed it though and he refused to chase after the problem and decided to take care of his cousin instead.

He had no clue what to do though and just ended up standing there, "inspecting" her face awkwardly while clumsily making attempts to clean her up with his multiple beefy arms.

"Gwen. Come on, wake up," Fourarms finally threw in the towel and tried to snap Gwen out of it instead. She was sitting there with her eyes and mouth open unable to process what just happened.

"She… she…" Gwen couldn't even speak as she reached up to touch the cut on her jaw.

"Gwen, remember what you said. That's not Mia. The real Mia needs our help. Now come on," Fourarms begged.

Gwen didn't resist as FourArms picked her up to get around faster. Humans might be fast, but Tetramands were bigger and bounded farther. Mia was in sight by the time Ben's Omnitrix started to beep.

"Oh no," he groaned and was forced to set his cousin down before they became a tangled mess of limbs.

The red flash of energy perked Mia up from what she was doing. But before she went after Ben, she made sure to drain the cables she had her hands on completely, sending the mall into dim light. If Max is inside the building he is going to be alerted to what is going on wherever he is.

Gwen, now back to normal, was trying to figure out what to do. Mia was a Megawatt and she isn't in control of that transformation. Ben knew how to fight them since he was with Grandpa Max back in that town. All Gwen knew about them was the limited experience with one of them plus second-hand accounts from her family.

She can't do any damage to that alien without it multiplying — would it be able to multiply? It can drain all the energy from electronics so those would be useless against them, and it seemed that they never get full no matter how much they eat.

There was an idea forming in her mind, but she had no clue if it would work. Maybe if they could drain all of the energy from the Megawatt, it might calm down. But how do you even do that?

Gwen looked around in the store she hid in while her cousin was comically running around screaming outside because he was being chased by a small energy vampire. She found herself inside an electronics store, but they would be useless to use for the aforementioned problem. Buzzsaws, computers, fans, backup generators… wait.

The visible plug from the backup generator was exactly what she needed to see. A smile spread across Gwen's face before it changed into a grimace from the sting of the cut on her jaw. It was going to be hard to avoid making expressions for the time being. She softly rubbed away the blood. Her shirt was already stained and it's been several minutes since it was opened, the cut must be deep for it not to close.

Outside, the Megawatt was catching up to Ben, kids aren't going to be fast when running away from literal living electricity.

"Whoa!" Ben cried out as he was lifted into the air by his underwear. Now he knew what his grandfather felt when this happened to him the exact same way. He hit the floor with a grunt as he was let go unceremoniously. The Megawatt made an instant dash for the Omnitrix, being able to smell all the endless amounts of energy inside of it.

"What are you doing?" The Omnitrix beeped severely and let out an orb of energy that pushed back the alien and recharged the watch at the same time.

Ben was amazed at what happened. But he didn't stand there uselessly, he took the moment to transform into whatever alien was already dialled up at the moment.

Wings sprouted out of his back while his face became covered in black skin. Green tubes with yellow centres popped out of the side of his face. An extra set of sharp green legs grew out alongside an oversized stinger.

"Stinkfly!" he called out. "Let's see how you like being chased around now." Megawatt's smile turned upside down into a frown as her easy meal became a difficult task.

Globs of green shot out of the tubes trailing after Megawatt. Either his aim was terrible, or his aiming wasn't as fast as the impish alien. It stuck to bike displays tainting their bodies, dripped down the walls where they hit instead, knocked down mannequins and stained a lot of clothing with its sickly green colour. Meanwhile, his target was laughing in amusement to the destruction it was orchestrating.

Stinkfly flapped his wings in frustration and gritted his teeth. "Stop moving around you sad excuse for a battery!" Megawatt just blew a raspberry hoping its taunt would rile up her target.

So far, nothing has managed to damage or restrain the alien. So it was still unknown if the Omnitrix recreation of it was able to do the same thing the original alien did.

The two flew off into the mall scaring even more unaware customers that thought nothing of the former screaming people that ran by earlier nor by the sudden blackout and leaving Gwen behind as she finally came out with a plan that would be ignored for the moment. Unfortunate victims of Stinkfly's goo earned bouts of laughter from Megawatt.

To Stinkfly's annoyance, Megawatt stopped during the chase to fill up on more electricity acting as if there wasn't anyone after it.

"Don't ignore me!" Stinkfly growled and shot some goo covering the exposed power lines.

Megawatt narrowly missed the attack and tried to uncover the lines but ended up getting stuck instead. "Yes!" Stinkfly cheered ignoring the angry noises from it. Another alien defeated _without_ anyone else's help, Ben thought cockily. Granted it _is_ his friend, but she wasn't herself right now. It's an out of control alien for all intents and purposes.

"What I would give to fight a villain who isn't mute. You're all always so quiet," he complained to no one in particular. Megawatt just hung there still quite stuck and glaring at him.

* * *

Gwen was stuck dragging the generator in a wagon behind her. She couldn't leave it behind, it's what she was going to use to help Mia turn back to normal, hopefully, even if it was too heavy for her. She angrily cursed at Ben for leaving her to do this by herself. He always rushes into things without a plan.

Hopefully, her cousin didn't hurt their friend. After all, this was done, they needed to figure out what happened to set this off. This could become a regular thing, and if it did, there would be so many problems wherever they went.

Her thoughts wandered to the morning as she tried to ignore the eerie silence of the now empty mall. She thought Mia was having fun. Relaxing from these alien fights that seemed to follow them everywhere was long overdue. But it looked like there was something that worried her friend. She'd been awfully quiet during the spa. And when she mentioned that she was the first best friend she'd had, Mia seemed to freak out. Maybe that's what caused the malfunction. That's what she would call what happened, a malfunction with the watch of hers. It could be tied to severe emotional reactions.

Helping Mia with her growing mental problems would take priority once things were set right. She felt confident that she could do that. Whenever she had time, Gwen spent her time studying Psychology. It was one of many subjects she wanted to major in when she went off to college or university.

"I need to know everything to help you, Mia," Gwen whispered sadly. She had a hunch that there was something seriously wrong going on with her friend. If only she knew what was really going on with her.

When Gwen finally caught up to Ben, she could hear his gloating and complaints. She rolled her eyes at what she heard. Her cousin was too careless with his fights. And it wasn't true that he won all of his fights without any help, he always had the help of everyone else to outsmart all of their enemies. Sometimes Mia even helped out by befriending the guys they thought were bad.

"Ben, if you're done gloating, some help would be nice!" she called. Stinkfly landed next to his cousin and pointed all of his eyes at the generator with a questioning pose.

"Uhh, what's this for?"

"I think I know how to get her back to normal. While you were fighting her, I was using everything I know about the Megawatts to figure out a safe way to get her back to normal. So when I realized that all of the electricity they eat is what made them even more excited, I hypothesized that if we drain her from all of that energy, it could stop her destruction and might even change her back into herself," she explained.

"

Stinkfly shot slime onto Gwen's shirt causing Megawatt to cackle, "Says the girl with snot on her shirt," he laughed too.

"Ugh! Seriously? Right now? You're so immature!"

" _'You're so immature,'_ " he mimicked with even more laughter from the two of them.

"Be quiet!" Gwen's eye twitched as she shot the order at the alien audience. Her expression swapped into a foul frown that shared the same tension with her crossed arms. She did not want to deal with this right now. They had a job to do.

"Can we do this after we get Mia back to normal?" It wasn't a question, it was an order and Ben could tell he shouldn't continue acting this way.

"Fine," without having to be told anything else, he hefted the generator into his arms and set it down underneath Megawatt. To make sure she wouldn't be going anywhere soon, he splattered some more slime to immobilize her earning more gibberish words and intense struggling.

"What am I supposed to do? What's your plan? Smartie."

Gwen ignores the snide remark and grabbed the cord to hand it over to her cousin. "Stab this into her," she ordered.

"I thought the point was to not hurt her?" Stinkfly said in confusion.

"I'm hoping the generator will suck away all the power. It's one of those things that stores all the electricity it gets from being plugged in."

Still looking unconvinced but deciding to trust his genius cousin, he grabbed the plug and swiftly stabbed it onto Megawatt's head.

Electricity visibly flowed out of its body and through the cord straight into the generator. In the process, Stinkfly was shocked into letting go of the plug. But with it already draining the tiny alien, it didn't need to be kept in place anymore.

"Ack! That hurt," he massaged his hand.

"Want me to kiss it better for you?" Gwen baby talked to him.

"Yuck!" The Omnitrix began to beep and Ben was back to normal again.

Megawatt's energy had also been fully drained by now. It was left sleeping peacefully hanging limply from all the goo. They were about to reach up and pull it down when a rapid beeping noise sparked up and purple energy glowed from its skin as she grew back into her normal self.

Ben and Gwen caught Mia as she fell due to being too heavy to be held by the small amount of slime that now covered her shirt.

* * *

 ** _Mia_**

I still couldn't believe that I lost control. Actually, I don't even know if I lost control or not. I remembered everything I did clearly. It didn't even feel like I was doing something against my will. All of those decisions were done by me. Putting those people in danger, sucking the mall dry of power, attacking strangers.

My head was swimming. I've never been that reckless. Or should I say violent? I assaulted people but I don't think I wounded anyone. Except for Gwen.

Seeing that scar on her jaw was painful for me. I hurt her. And whether or not I meant to do any of that stuff, it was still caused by my body, kind of. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I did any serious things to her.

She already tried to convince me that it wasn't my fault and that I wasn't in control of myself when it happened. I wanted to tell her so badly that I remembered everything and that I thought I was actually still in control of all the decision making, but I was afraid that she wouldn't forgive me after I said all that. My body wouldn't let me even open my mouth while I was thinking about that.

That scar would never fade away either. It would always be there to remind me what I did to her. How there _is_ a chance that I would join Vilgax. Thinking about that possibility sent chills down my spine.

We met up with Max a few minutes after they rescued me. He was extremely confused about what happened in the mall, but he had a very accurate hunch that we were involved in the chaos. And after filling him in on what happened, he decided it would be best to just leave before anyone who saw Gwen with the alien monsters could piece things together.

I could no longer deny that I was crushing hard on Gwen. Seeing her hurt forced me to admit to that. My sexuality was coming into question and right now I didn't have anyone who could help me with that. It's 2005, who knew how they would react if I even hinted at how I was feeling. It's a stupid concern but to me, it was world breaking. I could either ask for help — even though I feared that they wouldn't be accepting they would certainly try to help it's who they are — and have everything I know about myself come crashing down in a ball of fire, or I could keep it quiet and go on as if nothing had ever changed in the first place. Try to force myself to be "normal."

"What's wrong, Mia?" Max poked his head out with a concerned expression.

"Nothing, just thinking," I forced a reassuring smile.

"Well, come inside. You can think on the road. And don't be afraid to trust us with whatever it is you're dealing with. We're very open-minded," he gave me a knowingly, yet fatherly, smile.

I sucked in a deep breath. Maybe they _could_ help me figure things out. It should be time to tell them what's going on, maybe it'll even help get Ben off my back. I just needed to find the right words for this.


	7. Hidden Chambers

**Sup everyone. This is my final chapter in the Duplication Arc. Mia is done figuring out how to use the Omnitrix and is moving on to dealing with new threats. I'm not going to hide the following arc so I'll let y'all know what it is, I call it the Antitrix Arc. Some of you might know what that means if you've been keeping up with the reboot, if not then you're in for a big surprise :)**

 **Dperson3569: We're going to figure out what happened to Mia throughout the next Arc, I hope you will like what I'm going to do with her.**

 **Lull Meister: You're so close to what I'm planning for Mia, I'm just so ecstatic and nervous on how people will react to the whole reveal. Stay tuned!**

 **Guest-Questioner: I will say that not every chapter will be centred around Mia, though, the story is about her and her journey in the Ben 10 universe so… eh? But, yeah, They will all get their time to shine because I just love the characters so much. Glad to know you're enjoying this though.**

Mia stood there hugging someone. The build was feminine, slender, and toned. This person didn't work out but somehow kept in shape.

There was an ear-splitting silence that smothered them both, but it also felt comfortable. Mia was soothed and all of her muscles were relaxed. But it wasn't a day at the beach relaxed, it felt more like they held a weight on them for years and just barely had it lifted from them.

There was also something else she felt. She felt a little older, a bit taller. She was no longer cramped in her young skin.

 _Bang!_ The loud sound punched her and moments later her body was jolted violently. Her face was wet and dripping with tears as she clung tightly onto the person, unwilling to let go.

She'd been shot. And she knew she deserved it for some reason. But the other person was the one responsible for it. She had hidden the gun behind Mia's back and shot herself along.

The woman was torn away from her arms as Mia was lifted away from the ground and tossed into a black void. It was cold there. She wanted to rub her arms to comfort herself or warm up somehow, but she realized she didn't have a body anymore. She was part of the nothingness in the void now. There wouldn't be any pain or worry just like there wouldn't be any love or hope for her to feel.

Suddenly, she had a body again and felt her stomach churn as she was pulled like a rag doll at high speeds through the darkness. Slowly, the black void gained a red glow and the freezing temperatures rose to a toasty one.

Mia lurched to a stop and started falling vertically instead until she slammed onto an invisible floor.

In front of her rose a thin green figure with many tentacles hanging from her face. She snarled and bared her fangs and launched forward causing Mia to recoil in fear. She rolled to the side, the female Chimera dove into the floor missing her target and dispersed into smoke only to reform into the menacing force known as Vilgax.

He took on the normal appearance of his reboot self with bulky muscles. But now he had a more sleek armour like the one he had in Alien Force.

"You're now mine," he cackled.

The red glow of the void intensified making Mia break into a sweat while she struggled to breathe in the uncomfortable heat that was becoming a sweltering inferno. Then she was thrown into his eyes as lasers welled in them.

Everything warped into a new shade of red she couldn't even describe.

Yellow electricity struck everywhere as a familiar voice spoke, "This device's power will be 7x more powerful than the Omnitrix, and I use the term loosely."

An enormous figure shrouded in shadows erupted from the void and opened angry scarlet eyes. " _ **Liar. I'm the future…**_ " it raspily accused.

Once again it rushed her but this time she found herself frozen and unable to dodge the attack. She could only watch wide-eyed as the eyes swallowed her up.

She woke up drenched in sweat. Mia found herself shrouded in darkness which spooked her a bit. She was about to start panicking thinking that she was still in that nightmare of hers but stopped herself when she felt Gwen move a bit next to her.

With a sigh of relief, Mia turned to gaze at the young girl. The last slivers of moonlight lit up her soft face making her skin sparkle like diamonds.

Her eyes were drawn to Gwen's lips as they quivered from the short breaths she took. How would it feel to kiss them? She wondered. She fought the urge to lean down close to them and instead laid back down.

Mia turned aside as she was thrown into a coughing fit. Her throat was a little tight and felt a bit hoarse. She rolled her eyes as she realized it was probably just some symptoms that would only make her day uncomfortable and not result in any sickness.

The morning was drawing close. She would be telling them about the complicated feelings she was feeling and maybe she would even confess her feelings to Gwen. Maybe. Now if she could only get some sleep without being attacked by another delirium induced nightmare.

* * *

I still had no clue how to start spilling my thoughts to my friends. But there was no going back anymore. I was already lying enough by not telling them where I come from and keeping my changes in all of these fights to a minimum. Yet nothing was happening how it should be and I don't want things to get more unpredictable.

Gwen was next to Max on the passenger seat looking at me, I felt like I was being studied under those green eyes of hers. I have to admit that it was a little creepy. Ben was just on his game like he always is. If I don't see him playing around with that thing, then I see him fiddling around with the Omnitrix. What does he even expect to do with that thing? It doesn't have an interface like the final Omnitrix, all it does is show those shadows and nothing else. If he accidentally does something he'll never be able to figure out how to do it again, like the time he unlocked master control by accident.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down. I had to reassure myself that everything would be okay. Nothing bad would happen and they wouldn't "disown" me. Not that it would matter. I hardly knew them in reality. Still, I didn't want them to…. no! Stop that! Just tell them. It'll all be okay. _You'll just give them an excuse to get rid of you_ shut the fuck up brain.

Maybe Ben decided to look up from his game and spare me a glance because I suddenly felt his hand rest on my shoulder, "Hey, whatever it is, don't worry about it. We'll help you however we can."

"Yeah, what he said," Gwen agreed.

I drew in another deep breath failing to dispel my jitters. "I think I might be gay?" My blood went cold. I can't believe I actually said that out loud. I was super aware of Ben and Gwen's looks. My breathing faltered as I struggled not to hyperventilate and I don't know how to describe the intense feeling I felt right now. _You don't need them._

The Omnitrix on my wrist looked so welcoming. It would only take a few seconds to transform and run out of there. I could find my way back to my parents, convince them to move out, they seemed to do anything I wanted so it would be easy peasy.

Ben's Omnitrix broke me out of the shock as he beat me to the punch and XLR8 ran out of the Rustbucket and into the road ahead. I looked at Gwen expecting some kind of similar reaction as her cousin, but her face was unreadable as if calculating something about me. _She's figuring out how to let you down gently, it's obvious you like her now that they know_ my thoughts sneered.

Max was the only one giving me a comforting and knowing smile. It made me feel a little better now that I know someone isn't upset with me. But of course, he wouldn't judge me, he's met aliens and fought intergalactic threats like Vilgax. _Gwen will be disgusted now and we will be alone_ _,_ wait, we?

"Hey, don't worry about Ben, he's just being a Mega Dweeb like always. You know how he is," Gwen got up and walked back to where I was sitting and dropped down next to me. "What makes you think this?"

Ugh, why does her presence always make it this hard for me? And her sweet scent, wait, yuck! Huh?

I physically recoiled from all of the thoughts forming in my head. My personality was at war. 11-year-old thoughts and my real 14-year-old self were having a battle with what I was feeling. I also couldn't tell her why I felt this way. It involved knowing my real age. It would bring questions I don't want to be asked.

"I don't know. I think I'm at least bi. I know I like guys. But, I've also been liking a girl. It's complicated," I said exasperated and buried my head into my arms.

"Hey, we'll figure this out okay? Ben's a little, disappointed I guess, but at least he'll let up a little, that's always a plus right?" I looked up with a small smile. Yeah, he won't be bothering much anymore since he didn't hear me say that I still liked boys a bit, unless he thinks that he can convince me that he can "make me normal" again. I've seen that happen in high school, a guy with a crush on a girl learns that she's lesbian. Then, he starts proving that it's better to like guys instead as if it's just a choice.

I don't know what's supposed to happen next. This whole worrying about what would happen if I told them how I feel kind of made the ending a bit anticlimactic. Maybe the same would be true if I told Gwen I liked her but I don't want to risk it yet.

* * *

 _ **Ben**_

The Blue velociraptor alien tore down the road travelling faster than any sports car or formula 1 car. He maneuvered through the curves with better ease than them too. The wheels on his feet were possibly the only things allowing XLR8 to pierce past the current speeds.

XLR8 came to a stop at the bottom of the hill when he caught a glimpse of a castle's tower at the top. With his curiosity peaked, he waved his tail around as he tried to think of a way to get in. He really wanted to view what was inside of the place. Before right now, the only castles he knew existed in England where medieval knights roamed the lands in search of honour and glory.

His mouth split into a fangy grin and a chuckle rose from his chest as an idea sparked into his mind. "I bet there's no one in there, and with XLR8's speed, I can be in and out before I can time out. Honour and Glory, here I come," he rasped.

XLR8 began to speed up the hill but slipped and face planted on mud halfway up. "Ptoo!" he spits out some of the mud that managed to get into his mouth. XLR8 was about to get up and try again when he felt himself start sliding slowly. Knowing where this was going, he scrambled a bit but was unable to grip anything due to the mud that was underneath him.

Making matters worse was the watch's sudden alarm signalling that his time as an alien was over. So now we end up with a 10-year-old boy covered in mud sliding on all fours down the hill at an angle where he's going to be launched from a small cliff onto the road below. It's safe to say that Ben wasn't having a good day today. His crush reveals herself to not be interested in boys and now, not even a few minutes later, he's going to become a heroic pancake.

"This is the worst day of my liiiife!" he screamed.

He was in the air on his way to crashing to the floor when a black and purple blur of fur came sprinting around the curve. Backspin's eyes opened in surprise since she wasn't expecting to come barreling into a falling kid. Her talons instinctively shot out of her soles in an effort to stop her, but she was going too fast to prepare for the sudden stop at high speed. She was also still inexperienced with the alien and didn't know what else to do.

But the talons ended up doing more harm than good. Her footing was twisted away from her as the sudden appearance of her talons caused her to trip sending her stumbling into Ben. In a tangle of limbs, the two rolled into the safety barriers. Backspin's head hit the metal knocking her cold and reversing her transformation while Ben was sent flying over it and into the waters below.

He bobbed up to the surface gasping for air without a bruise before another wave crashed over him and swallowed him up. With a ton of effort, Ben made it back to the surface and glanced up in time to see that his tumble into the ocean knocked rubble out of the way of a 5-foot boulder. He dove back into the water and swam to the side just as the boulder smashed into the water right where he was a few seconds ago. If he could breathe underwater, he would've let out a sigh of relief.

Ben turned his attention back to the surface and was preparing to swim back up when he felt the water a few inches below him being sucked away into a trench inside of the cliff. Moments later, he himself was pulled into the current and was swept away from his salvation. But when one door closes another opens and that door is the sound of his Omnitrix recharging.

Feeling light-headed, Ben quickly moved his fingers against the face and dialled up an alien he had only used once before. Green light lit up the trench to briefly reveal multiple cavern openings and he felt the changes begin. His skin became scaly, his hands developed webs and his nails grew into talons, an antenna grew out of his forehead while his jaw widened to make space for fangs sharp enough to bite through metal, his legs elongated and gained the ability to become a fishy tail, and gills opened up on his neck.

"Ripjaws!" he bubbled in the water. "Finally a place where this guy doesn't suck," he complained. The last time this alien was used was a few days ago when they passed by a dock carnival. There were a couple of pirates that came out of a submarine to pillage the place and Ben naturally decided to give them a hand. While Max and Mia were in charge of protecting the civilians as Backspin, Ben was in charge of destroying the submarine with the help of his cousin. Ripjaws was very effective against the metal with Gwen's knowledge of a submarine's vital parts. He just learned the hard way that his aquatic alien didn't do well when he was a few seconds out of water.

At first, the fish-man tried to fight back against the current, but all it did was make him crash into the rocky surfaces that surrounded him, it was just plain out painful. So without a choice, Ripjaws decided to swim with the current. Using the boost the water had, he should be able to get out of this claustrophobic space much faster in order to figure out a way to get back to the surface. And honestly, this was becoming a fun rollercoaster ride for him. Unlike with XLR8, he didn't have to actively move so it was just like going on for a ride.

There was still some disappointment though, Ben really wanted to see what the castle looked like. The only thing he saw was the tower spire and that wasn't a proper representation of what the place could be. Maybe it was one of those classic castles where it was just a stony building with a moat surrounding it and the only entrance is a moat. Or it could be a modern-looking building with some medieval aspects like walls with places for soldiers to fire arrows through. Maybe it didn't even exist anymore and there were only ruins in which the kid could find countless amounts of treasure. He would be filthy rich. The golden coins and sparkling jewels might even give Mia that little push he knew she needed in order to like him.

His heart was hurting a bit right now. Mia's indirect rejection was like a sword stabbing him. He wished he could do something. He was thinking of so many ways he could get her to like him now, but none of them were very proper.

Ripjaws suddenly ran out of water to swim through and burst into the open air where he slammed against a stony ceiling which forced him back onto the floor with a groan. His webbed hands carefully pressed against his head checking for damage and trying to rub away the resulting headache.

The whining sound of the timeout signalled that he'd been in the current for at least 15 minutes. Gwen and Mia spent some time helping Ben figure out how much time he had in each transformation after growing tired of timing out in the middle of fights and recorded a solid 15 minutes per transformation.

"Okay, I'm going to either wait until I can transform into Fourarms and punch my way out of here, or I can just start running around in the dark," Ben said as he tried to find something to touch in the darkness.

A sudden mechanical shriek made Ben recoil in discomfort. "Maybe, I'll be looking for a way out right now," he muttered, panicked.

* * *

 _ **Mia**_

I woke up to Gwen's hands on me. She helped me up and steady me on my feet. My head felt a little heavy and I couldn't remember where I was for a moment. When I looked around and saw the ocean and the cliffside I was able to remember what happened.

"Mia, where's Ben? What happened? You just left without saying anything, and now we find you unconscious in the middle of the road?" I groaned at Gwen's questions, I guess I was still a little too disoriented to answer anything.

Max helped me into the RV and pulled over safely into an empty spot in the road. I sat on the table trying to stop my head from swimming in order to find the words to answer Gwen's questions.

"I'm not sure what happened. I was running as Backspin trying to catch up to Ben, but I didn't get far when I ended up crashing into him as he fell off of the cliff. I'm not sure what happened after I crashed into the barrier. The next thing I remember is you guys pulling up to help me. And and…" I groaned as I got lightheaded again.

"Hey, hey, it's alright." I looked at Gwen wide-eyed, is she assuming that I'm afraid of getting in trouble?

"Do you have any idea of where he might be?" Max interrupted.

I looked up at the hill where I could catch a glimpse of a tower. I was surprised, I thought there weren't any castles in America considering the whole point of independence was to get away from royalty. But my thoughts ended up taking me somewhere else, maybe that's where Ben was headed. Would he really abandon me unconscious though? Maybe, after all I did break his heart.

"Do you think he went there?" Gwen interrupted my thoughts.

"A young broken hearted boy who is obsessed with fantasy and action sees a castle tower that he won't explore says no one ever," I say sarcastically. Damn hitting my head sure got rid of all of my manners. "Sorry," I sighed in apology.

"It's okay. You must have a monster headache."

"Well, I guess we should check if your cousin really is there," Max tells Gwen. "If he isn't then he should return before dinner time and we'll at least profit off this by getting an educational tour."

Getting to the castle took a surprisingly long amount of time. The spire we saw seemed like it was closer than it was. We ended up actually hiking for nearly an hour, and 10 of those minutes was only spent on getting to the hill it was on. Yeah, that's right, it was on a hill. Max should've taken the RV closer instead. But I guess if Ben isn't here then he'll be able to find us by getting to the Rustbucket instead.

"Hello strangers. How would we be able to help?" Someone dressed up as a monk was waiting for us at the door of the castle. Yep, it was a complete castle, the spire wasn't a sign of ruins after all.

"Hello, we're looking for my nephew, we were wondering if he maybe came to this place. You see he ran away and he couldn't have gotten far, plus he likes this kind of stuff," Max explained.

While Max and Gwen were talking to the monk I decided to look at what kind of stuff was around here. Bushes and trees decorated the walls which made sense since we hiked through a thin forest. Could Ben really be here? It wasn't really wasn't like him to just run away. I can't even imagine him hiding with a bunch of monks either. He's a boy that loves action not silence and meditating.

"If you want, you can stay in here for the day and wait for your nephew. But I can assure you that you people are the only ones that have come by today." He gestured for us to come in. As we walked past him I got the feeling that something wasn't right. And it wasn't just because I couldn't see his face at all under the hood.

"I thought you said we were the only ones in here?" Gwen asked. We were walking in the courtyard and started seeing a bunch of other normal looking people walking around. Couples stopping at some market stands. Kids playing around the fountain. Other people were even gathering around several musicians and performance actors.

I have to admit that it all looked beautiful. But I had to wonder where their cars were. I didn't see a parking lot hidden in the woods and there aren't any sounds of honking and traffic nearby. These people looked like tourists not like monks living in the castle grounds.

But then I spotted their symbol and it filled me with dread. On the castle walls sheltering us from the woods was a tarp bearing an infinity symbol. In the Ben 10 world only one organization had the infinity symbol. We were in a forever knight castle.

My eyes widened in fear and I looked at Max and Gwen. Max was still talking to the monk and as I looked at them I swear I could see the sun shine on a small piece of gold where the face was hidden in shadows. It has to be Enoch. Did they do something to Ben? Were they lying to us about him not coming here? They hated aliens and I know Ben well enough to know that he wouldn't be able to resist turning into an alien for very long.

I pulled Gwen away from Enoch to avoid any eavesdropping. "Hey! Where are we going Mia?"

I raised a finger to my lips in warning to her and rushed toward the crowd of people in the market with her hand in mine. There would be too much talking in there for anyone to hear us whispering. And their bodies would cover us too since most of them were adults.

* * *

 **Ben**

"Okay, Ben. You got this. A little bit of darkness isn't enough to defeat the greatest hero in the making," Ben assured himself loudly.

He was walking around carefully in the dark trying to feel his way around. For the past several minutes he's tripped on rocks, bumped into corners, stepped on bats, and walked straight into dead ends. His watch still hadn't recharged yet so he was stuck being blind for a long time.

"A lot of darkness is enough to drive anyone mad. But not the great Ben Tennyson," this time the boy didn't sound too convincing. If he didn't get out of here soon he'd be snapping.

"I bet Mia wouldn't have any trouble with her fancy watch. That thing doesn't even need to recharge. Like what's with it? Why did I get the busted one?" he sighed.

Ben suddenly slipped on wet stone and began to slide down a drop in the cave. He screamed trying to stop himself with the cave walls but he was going too fast for him to get a grip on it. All he managed to do was cut a wound open on his palm.

He dropped through a hole and collapsed onto the ground where there was finally some light giving him the ability to see.

Ben picked himself up and saw that he was now in a dungeon. The cave must be connected to the underground parts of the castle he saw. If only he found some stairs to get down here. That would've been better than falling through several feet of slippery stone.

"What's a dungeon doing here though? And where's the light coming from?" Ben groaned.

Once he was able to get on his feet and his eyes adjusted to the light, Ben was walking again. Torches lined up the hallway but the cells remained dark which was giving Ben the creeps. There could be some monsters in there and unless they moved or tried to attack him, he wouldn't know.

Ben could hear something the further he moved into the dungeon. It started out as a soft humming noise at first. But it grew louder and metallic. Soon he could tell that it sounded like someone banging a pot against the wall.

"Is anyone there?" He called out. It was stupid to yell out into the darkness yes, but the omnitrix was recharged now and if need be he could instantly transform into Fourarms to take care of any dangerous monsters hiding here.

"It's okay! I'm just a normal kid. I'm just a little lost. Some help would be nice." Ben's hand hovered over the Omnitrix ready and raring to go.

A mechanical wine was the only response he got. During his hesitation Ben's curiosity ended up winning over his cautiousness like always and he decided to go on.

"Whoa." Ben stopped at the cell that was letting out all of those noises. It was the orange crab guy who saved them from the bounty hunter and he was wrapped up in metal chains preventing any sort of movement. "What are you doing here?"

Kraab's eyes flared to life as he recognized the voice. His head cranked over to him and he said, —I was captured and imprisoned in this dark dungeon when I fell from orbit.—

"What? How?"

—Tetrax escaped. And he blew up the ship in the process. So now, not only am I stranded on this planet, but I'm also a prisoner to the group of anti-alien humans called the Forever Knights.—

"No, that's impossible. No one believes that aliens exist. Everyone thinks that all the alien sightings are just crazy people trying to get famous," Ben argued.

—How do you explain my capture then?— Kraab shot back.

"Smart monkeys?" Ben said sheepishly.

* * *

 _ **Mia**_

I groaned in boredom. Gwen and I have been roaming the castle halls for hours and haven't found a single clue to Ben's presence on the grounds. At least Gwen was having fun though, she was excitedly reading every display as if it was a once in a lifetime chance. To be honest, it probably would be if we found Ben or ended up in trouble since in a fight everything ends up wrecked. It's sort of our thing.

My eyes stuck to Gwen drinking in every action she took though. That was the only saving grace from this search. I could see how her face lit up with joy every time she read up on new lore. The artifacts excited her and the old art that hung all around made her admire the place more.

Why oh why do these feelings hit the way they do? I wasn't even this head over heels when I fell for my boyfriend.

"Did you know that all of the castles that exist in the country were built as jokes? That's why they aren't officially recognised as castles. But this one was brought over from Europe, Stone by stone." I gazed at her movements dreamily barely registering her facts.

"Do you think he's alright?" Gwen's question pierced my euphoria.

"Why? Are you worried for that little scamp?"

"He is smaller than us," She admitted to our laughter. "It's just that he seemed heartbroken when you told us that you were, y'know, that," she shrugged.

My heart plunged. The way she said "that" felt, like bad. I don't know how to describe how it felt. All I can say is that this wasn't giving me hope for the future. I can survive without her, but right now all I could think about was how I feel about her. Not how Ben feels not how I was different before coming here. I didn't even feel my usual insecurity and powerlessness like whenever I wasn't in transformation.

I took in a deep breath. I'm overworking myself for nothing.

Several more minutes of searching passed making me feel more dull when a book on the shelves caught my attention. It was much thicker than any of the others. It was like the width of 7 bibles. I approached it curious about why it was so much bigger.

I tried tugging it out at first but was faced with such an immense weight to it. Even when I tried to pull it out from the top edge it was still too heavy to pull out. I pulled out the surrounding books and then pulled with all my might.

The book only moved slightly before being pulled back into place causing a hidden doorway to open. But it was all for naught since an explosion rocked the grounds as a bigger hole unleashed a flash of fire right next to it.

"Ben!" Gwen cried out in relief.

"Kraab?" My jaw dropped as I saw the robotic bounty hunter behind Heatblast.

—Hello there, Protector of the Omnitrix.—

"How, why are you here? Did the Forever Knights do something to you?" I rushed over and inspected him for any sort of damages to his being.

—Your worry for me is appreciated, but the faction did not harm me, only imprisoned me. As for why I'm here, Tetrax escaped and sabotaged my ship.—

"Good, cause these humans tend to kill any aliens they come across."

"How do you know that?" I turned to Ben who was wearing a frown.

"Because some people actually listen to me," Gwen shot.

Ben stood looking at me and Gwen, his eyes darting back and forth. A shiver running down my spine froze me in place. What if he put two and two together? That I actually like his cousin and what if he tells her and she hates me for it?

"I—" the world spun around me as my stomach felt like it was being pulled out of me. My head felt fuzzy and all the feeling left my legs and my breathing became heavily. I could hear my friends making sounds but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

Slowly and blindly, my hand tried to find its way onto my Omnitrix as I ignored the stings of my sweat on my eyes. I finally found the dial and activated a random transformation.

" _Feedback!_ " I gasped drinking in comforting amounts of air.

"Mia! Are you okay?" Gwen began to stroke the plugs on my hand.

"It kind of looked like you were having a heart attack or something," Ben added.

I looked at them still breathing heavily. Ben and Gwen both had frightened expressions. Kraab, well I never know what he's feeling since his face is always the same. I plopped myself down and rested against a wall.

" _Yeah. I'm good, it was uh, it was nothing. Seriously,_ " I sighed.

No one had a chance to argue with me. A bunch of clanking armour was followed by thick Queen's accent. "Oi, there be the dragons. Sumuhn wayne the Lord Enoch!"

I discharged electricity on the plus sized knight knocking him out and stood up to carry Gwen bridal style. Damn, the confidence boost being alien gives me is awesome.

" _We gotta get out of here guys,_ " I looked at Kraab then at the wall separating us from the outside world.

—I got it— Kraab blasted a hole in the wall and as I jumped out with Gwen, Ben stood behind to create a wall of fire to stop the knights from chasing us.

I expected the crowd of people to start screaming and running at the sight of a walking candlestick, a robotic pokemon, and a walking plug outlet carrying a little girl. But they actually remained calm and started to disperse while a squad of Knights replaced them.

"Ben?" Max called us.

"We found him Grandpa! We also found out that this castle belongs to a group of Alien Racists!" Yeessh, that is such a harsh word to use, but I kind of agreed with her. These guys seemed to be almost like the Nazis during the show.

"Forever knights?" There he goes again slipping in his cover. I wanted so badly to just shake him out of it and force him to tell the kids he's a plumber. How the fuck is he protecting them by not giving them advice he found useful during his plumber days? It's not like he's a superhero or something. And even then keeping your identity a secret from your family only puts them in danger by having them oblivious to all the danger that surrounds them.

"How did you know?" Ben asked.

Because he's a plumber boy. An intergalactic cop, and he's probably crossed paths with these larpers at some point and had to save his anodite girlfriend.

"Kind of obvious with all the banners surrounding the castle grounds." The cousins nodded eating up that lame excuse.

"Do you know those filthy creatures?" The monk asked Max. I glared at him, I'm 89% sure he's Enoch.

"Yes, that's my grandson and his friend."

The monk pulled off his robe revealing chainmail armour underneath and the golden mask that was forged with an impassive expression. Okay, now I'm 100% sure that it's Enoch.

"Impossible. The friend you came in with was a girl, and you talked about your grandson as though he were a human child."

"That's because I am a Human Child," Heatblast rasped and shot a fireball out of his finger.

The fireball hit Enoch square in the chest but its flames quickly dissipated into the air.

The knight turned to Max and said with a menacing voice, "You will die a painful death for bringing in Filthy alien hybrids to my castle."

Max landed a silent punch on Enoch knocking him to the ground, damn the old man is strong enough to punch metal armour! The field erupted into chaos as the knights revealed their weapons and started firing at us.

Kraab had put on an orange shield to protect us from the laser weapons.

" _Revert!_ " Purple energy glowed out of my skin as I shrunk back into my human form to dial up another alien. "Prism!"

"New alien? Oh man," Ben groaned between grunts of flames.

—A crystalsapien? Do you even know what it does?—

"Completely."

I jumped out of the shield and into the firing range of the lasers. Every shot that hit me was absorbed into my body causing the pink crystals shooting out of my body to glow. I redirected each of their shots back to them in a burst of colours.

"Hyah!" Behind me Kraab lowered the shield allowing my friends to help me. I winced at the smell of singed hair that was rising as time went on. I could only hope that the Forever Knights were okay. Don't get me wrong, they're the bad guys and they need to be stopped.

But killing the enemy doesn't sit well in my stomach. Especially if they're being killed by children. This is like what's happening in the Old world. Kids being groomed to become weapons of mass murder. Like I said, I can only hope that Ben wasn't seriously hurting them. But if those knights aren't going to pull themselves out of the fight to lick their wounds then there really isn't much I can do.

My worry for them faded soon enough, however.

"Ahhh!"

"Gwen?!" I turned to see her backed into a corner with two knights cackling and pointing their swords at her. I was lost in the reflection of flames inside her eyes and I could feel them kindle something inside me too.

My vision went red with rage and I felt like I was floating and taking a back seat in my own body. It felt just like when I lost control in the Mall.

* * *

"Grandpa!" Gwen ran as fast as she could into the arms of her grandfather. Prism saved the girl by smashing into the knights. It was a frightening thing to see her friend go ballistic and attack people without controlling herself to prevent serious injury.

"Whoa. She's going crazy, we need to get out of here," Heatblast stopped throwing his fireballs. None of the Forever Knights were even focused on them anymore, they were too busy running for their lives now. Finally some common sense filled those hollow helmets.

"What's going on with Mia?" Max looked at the flying alien with worry as he wrapped a protective arm around his niece.

—If I may be so bold, I suggest we get to safety before we start wondering about things?—

Everyone nodded agreeing with Kraab and opened their own exit through the castle walls.

Prism stayed behind flying through the air. Her eyes and crystal shards were no longer a soft purplish colour. They were filled with red energy instead.

Her hands were stretched in front of her as she flew casting a deadly white ray that turned everything it touched to ash leaving nothing but scorched earth in its place. An unlucky group of Forever Knights found themselves caught in the deadly light and as soon as it washed over them, only scraps of metal remained to signify they ever even existed.

And out of the Death ray, several creatures stepped out. They were shimmering rainbow representations of a Bear, a Bald Eagle, and an Elephant. Those animal projections joined in on the destruction of the castle.

Not one of them, nor Prism, made any attempts to attack the Knights that had made it out of the grounds. They just kept their focus on the castle and soon, there wasn't anything for them to attack.

* * *

When I suddenly came to my senses I was standing in front of my friends. Heatblast was Ben again and he was enduring a lecture inside of the RV. I knew this because I could hear Ben crying about how nothing is ever fair.

"Hey, are you alright?"

I looked at Gwen feeling so relieved that she was okay.

"Revert."

I jumped on her and latched on tight. No water works for today though. I was too emotional to shed a tear.

"Hey, I might just start charging you money for hugs. I could get rich off this," she chuckled.

"I'm happy you're safe. And I'd rob a bank for you M'lady," I laughed.

"Hmm. Don't I feel special. Your crush better watch out because I might steal you from her."

My heart thumped hard and I felt like a light breeze could lift me away. Does this mean? I'm not gonna risk it. But it does feel nice to know that I might have a chance.

—Ahem.—

I felt my face flush as I remembered that we had an audience to our flirts.

"Oh hey Kraab," I strained a wide smile.

—Are you alright? My sensors pick up radical levels of hormones in you. Did the Omnitrix Malfunction affect you badly or are you…—

I frantically begged him to shut up before he could utter a peep about my attraction to Gwen. But his words registered in my head as I did.

"Wait, is my Omnitrix really suffering Malfunctions?" I raised my right hand to his optics.

—Yes. I detected a spike in its DNA elements when you lost control. It's seems like your transformations are undergoing mutations of some kind but it's nothing serious.—

A loud explosion rang from the castle when he said it, making me raise a questioning eyebrow.

—Even if it is, there is nothing I can do. I also need to find my partner. So I have to go. I do hope everything goes well.—

"Uh okay? Bye."

Gwen and I waved goodbye as he disappeared into the Forest.

"I'm so sorry if I worried you," I sighed.

"Nah. I knew you were just trying to protect us," she tried waving it off. But I could see a small shimmer of fear in her eyes.

I felt my heart grow heavy with guilt. She means everything to me and knowing that I scared her again was just painful.

"Hey, at least you didn't go bonkers for no reason." A small smile spread on my face when I felt her hand slip into mine.

Her skin is so soft and smoothing. I could almost smell the strawberries on her. Call me a creep but I wanted nothing more right now than to have a relaxing night next to her side. She just made me all weak.

"Come on. I want to see what punishment Ben gets," she pulled us inside with a playful laugh.


End file.
